Malaysian Grand Prix qualifying: 'Emphatic' Lewis Hamilton beats Nico Rosberg to pole

Lewis Hamilton beat his Mercedes Formula 1 teammate Nico Rosberg to the top spot in qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix in emphatic style, with Max Verstappen beating team mate Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull in-house battle for third.

The world champion’s lap of 1m32.850s came on his first run in Q3 it narrowly missed out on the fastest ever lap of this Sepang circuit of 1m32.582, set by Fernando Alonso in 2005 during Q1, at the wheel of a 3.0 litre V10 Renault.

Rosberg put in a messy first Q3 lap and was down in fifth place after the initial efforts in the final segment of the session.

Their fortunes appeared to be reversed on their second runs in Q3 as Hamilton locked up heavily at Turn 1 and abandoned his lap early while Rosberg improved his time and was just over 0.1s adrift of pole with one sector remaining.

But another mistake at the reprofiled final corner meant Rosberg slid out wide and had to wrestle his car around the Turn 15 hairpin to ultimately end up 0.414s behind Hamilton, who clinched his eighth pole of 2016 and became the second driver in F1 history – after Michael Schumacher – to record 100 front row starts.

A podium tomorrow will be Hamilton's 100th in Formula 1

Speaking after the session, Hamilton said: “Today the car felt fantastic, I really enjoyed the lap. [I] could have been faster.

“I think [Red Bull and Ferrari] are going to be very quick, they’ve been quick all weekend. Of course I’m very happy and grateful for my lap but you always want to finish the last lap, that’s why I said I think there’s more time there.

“I think tomorrow, providing the conditions are like this, the track is a lot better, a lot smoother and it seems to work better with the tyres than it has done in previous years. So I think it will be a close race for sure because I think they have very good long runs. [But] I think we were looking quite strong also. Hopefully that’s the case tomorrow.”

Max Verstappen was best-of-the-rest behind the Mercedes duo as he beat his Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo to third, while Sebastian Vettel improved on his final lap in Q3 to demote his Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen to sixth.

Both Red Bull and Ferrari tried to get through Q1 saving a set of soft tyres for the race. Both Ferraris were too close to the cut-off time for comfort and went for a set of soft tyres for another run. Ricciardo made it through on mediums, while Verstappen took a set of softs for a final Q1 run, but was told to back off before the lap started and so the tyres are virtually new.

This could be decisive in the race tomorrow as Red Bull may try a very fast soft-soft-hard strategy, if the track temperatures are suitable.

Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg will start seventh and eighth for Force India, ahead of McLaren’s Jenson Button – who complained bitterly about traffic problems after he spun in Q1 – and Felipe Massa, the Williams driver rounding out the top ten in his final Malaysian Grand Prix.

Valtteri Bottas’ lock up at the final corner on his last run in Q2 cost him dearly as he ended up just 0.039s outside the top ten and will start 11th, ahead of the Haas F1 duo of Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez.

Kevin Magnussen qualified 14th for Renault and Daniil Kvyat beat his Toro Rosso teammate Carlos Sainz to 15th to out qualify the Spaniard for the first time since the European Grand Prix.

In Q1, Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr qualified 17th and 18th for Sauber ahead of Jolyon Palmer, who locked up at the final corner on his last run for Renault, and he will start 19th.

Esteban Ocon beat his Manor teammate Pascal Wehrlein in qualifying for the first time in his F1 career as they line up 20th and 21st, but may face an investigation for not getting out of Button’s way midway through the 18-minute opening segment.

Fernando Alonso did enough to set a time within 107 per cent of Hamilton’s best time in Q1 before climbing out of his McLaren with the slowest lap, as he has to take 45-places worth of grid penalties for taking new power unit parts in practice and knew he would start last regardless of his Q1 time.

Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying results:

1 Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes 1m32.850s

2 Nico Rosberg, Mercedes 1m33.264s +0.414s

3 Max Verstappen, Red Bull 1m33.420s +0.570s

4 Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull 1m33.467s +0.617s

5 Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari 1m33.584s +0.734s

6 Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari 1m33.632s +0.782s

7 Sergio Perez, Force India 1m34.319s +1.469s

8 Nico Hulkenberg, Force India 1m34.489s +1.639s

9 Jenson Button, McLaren 1m34.518s +1.668s

10 Felipe Massa, Williams 1m34.671s +1.821s

Q2

11 Valtteri Bottas, Williams 1m34.577s

12 Romain Grosjean, Haas 1m35.001s

13 Esteban Gutierrez, Haas 1m35.097s

14 Kevin Magnussen, Renault 1m35.277s

15 Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso 1m35.369s

16 Carlos Sainz, Toro Rosso 1m35.374s

Q1

17 Marcus Ericsson, Sauber 1m35.816s

18 Felipe Nasr, Sauber 1m35.949s

19 Jolyon Palmer, Renault 1m35.999s

20 Esteban Ocon, Manor 1m36.451s

21 Pascal Wehrlein, Manor 1m36.587s

22 Fernando Alonso, McLaren 1m37.155s