Vettel starts last for final Malaysia F1 GP while Hamilton takes pole in huge blow to Ferrari

Sebastian Vettel's title hopes were dealt another decisive blow as he starts last for the Formula 1 Malaysia Grand Prix – and Lewis Hamilton starts on pole.

Kimi Raikkonen starts second, with the ability to provide some consolation for Ferrari on Sunday while both Red Bulls begin third and fourth.

"We'll try to get further than 100 metres tomorrow," quipped Raikkonen.

"It's good for us to be in this position in qualifying. On my birthday to be third here is perfect," said 20-year-old Max Verstappen.

Vettel limped his Ferrari back to the pits at the beginning of Q1 saying “It feels like I have no turbo,” and the FP2 leader and FP3 runner-up failed to set a qualifying time.

Vettel's hopes of a comeback are all but over, but the four-time champion shook his mechanics' hands as the Ferrari was retired and said: “To be honest, I didn't do much this afternoon so there's not so much to feel something about.

"It's part of motor racing. It's not ideal, especially on a day when you feel you have the right car. It's a shame for us.

"It's not good to have a car [like this] and I think we could've gone all the way. I said to the guys 'OK we have a very fast car and at least we saved the tyres'.

"The car is quick, so that's why maybe I'm relaxed.

"Overtaking here is more straightforward [than in Singapore] and I think that if you have a quick car, you can provide quick drives," said a composed Vettel.

Q1

The Mercedes duo, Verstappen and Raikkonen opted for soft tyres over the super-softs chosen by the rest of the field, and it was Raikkonen who went quickest early on with a 1m32.277s.

Hamilton came back to set a time of 1m31.605s, taking first place in Q1, three tenths ahead of Verstappen who split the two Mercedes. Raikkonen settled for fourth, with 0.654s splitting the top four.

Team-mate Vettel was unable to set a lap-time and with Hamilton having topped Q1, Vettel's championship challenge was slipping away by the second.

Felipe Massa bucked a trend of poor Williams performances to take fifth, nearly two tenths ahead of Daniel Ricciardo.

In seventh was Esteban Ocon whose team-mate was 12th, but it was Pierre Gasly who produced the most notable performances of the session, moving up to eighth with his last attempt to beat both Renaults and his 11th place team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr.

Rounding out the top 10 was Jolyon Palmer in ninth, who beat team-mate Nico Hulkenberg (10th) by 0.010s.

Eliminated were both Haas drivers and both Saubers. Marcus Ericsson's 12th Q1 elimination is the longest run out of any driver, and Haas has now lost a car in Q1 11 times this season.

The sole Ferrari of Vettel at the bottom of the leaderboard was the most glaring omission from Q2.

Q2

Bottas set a blistering lap of 1m30.803s to put himself top by 0.123s over Raikkonen, while Verstappen took third in Q2 – all on super-softs.

Hamilton took fourth with 0.174s separating him and Bottas while Ricciardo rounded out the top five ahead of both Force Indias, led by Perez.

Both McLaren-Hondas made it into the top 10, with Fernando Alonso making it to Q3 at the expense of Massa by 0.024s.

Though Williams in 11th and 13th halted a worrying record of three Q1 eliminations in the last five races, neither could make it past Q2, joining the Toro Rosso pair at the bottom of the standingswith Gasly 15th, 0.156s behind his team-mate.

Palmer continues to be the only driver this season not to have out-qualified his team-mate as he finished 13th in Q2 and Hulkenberg finished eighth.

Nobody has ever finished on the Malaysia GP podium having started outside the top 10 on the grid.

Q3

After his first run, Hamilton led Q3 with a time of 1m30.076s, already two tenths ahead of Raikkonen and half a second ahead of both Red Bulls and his team-mate.

The leader then complained that he was “down on power” as he emerged for his final flying lap, but his engineers were content.

Hamilton couldn't improve on that time, and neither could Raikkonen who was pushing as hard as he could. Pole position was Hamilton's, the 70th of his career.

Toto Wolff later said that Hamilton had the 'derate' setting stuck on his car, preventing him from setting a faster lap.

Raikkonen remains the only driver to start in the top five at every race this season, having qualified on the front-row behind Hamilton.

Verstappen beat his team-mate by 0.050s to take third place but both Red Bulls will start on the second row ahead of Mercedes' Bottas who starts fifth, next to Force India's Esteban Ocon who out-qualified ninth place Perez.

Ocon is the only driver not to have lost a place in the first lap of a grand prix this season.

McLaren's Stoffel Vandoorne took seventh ahead of Renault's Hulkenberg, while Vandoorne's team-mate Alonso settled for 10th place.

"We had no idea how it was going to go - and I'm sorry for what happened to Seb,” said Hamilton. “But we turned it around and I'm grateful."