Vettel takes pole ahead of Hamilton

SEPANG, Malaysia (AP):

Sebastian Vettel claimed the pole position for the Malaysian Grand Prix yesterday, extending Red Bull's qualifying dominance and setting up the German to start the Formula One season with successive victories.

The defending world champion was the last man to complete his flying lap at the Sepang circuit and dramatically edged out McLaren's Lewis Hamilton by just 0.10 seconds. Red Bull's Mark Webber was third and McLaren's Jenson Button fourth.

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso will start the race in fifth, while Renault's Nick Heidfeld qualified sixth. Ferrari's Felipe Massa, Renault's Vitaly Petrov, Mercedes' Nico Rosberg and Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi completed the top 10.

For the second race running, Michael Schumacher did not make it into the final session of qualifying - running more than 0.60 seconds behind teammate Rosberg - and will start 11th.

Including last season, Red Bull has claimed the pole position in 17 of the past 21 GPs. Vettel's 17th career pole tied him on the all-time list with three-time world champion Sir Jackie Stewart. However, he cut it very fine, crossing the start-finish line only four seconds before the checkered flag fell to prevent anyone starting a lap.

"So very close in the end with the McLaren guys, so I'm very happy,'' Vettel said.

He was quick to thank his mechanics, who managed to integrate the KERS power-boost system into the chassis, having been forced to forego the device in qualifying and race in Melbourne due to technical difficulties.

"That made the difference today,'' Vettel said. "Without that, we would have been behind the McLaren guys.''

Hamilton was not disappointed not to take the pole, but still encouraged that McLaren got much closer to the Red Bulls here than in Melbourne, where Vettel was 0.80 seconds clear of the field in qualifying.

'We did a great job'

"I don't think we can be disappointed,'' Hamilton said. "We did a great job to even be up there with the Red Bulls.

"These guys (Red Bull) have a bit of an edge, but clearly we have closed the gap a little bit here.''

Ferrari, the third of the purported world champion contenders, was again off the pace, with Alonso almost a second behind Vettel's pole time.

"We were not quick enough in Australia, not quick enough here,'' Alonso said. "China is in five days' time, so it's quite a difficult weekend as well.''

Interestingly, Alonso claimed the Red Bull cars were still not using KERS, despite both their drivers and team principal Christian Horner saying they were.

All 24 cars will start the race, as all drivers were within seven percent of the fastest car in the first sector of qualifying.