Mark Webber weathered a massive rain storm at Sepang to take his second career pole and making it three in three weekends for Red Bull (full results). The Rain Gods surely love Formula One as after the Bahrain snore fest they have blessed the two races hence with some gracious wet weather.

The rain made it a nightmarish affair for Ferrari and McLaren who made the wrong choice of staying in for the first ten minutes of Q1 and trusted the weather forecast that predicted a dry session later on. But the rain got worse and they were all caught out. Sebastien Vettel and Webber got in banker laps in time, so did Renault and others but this goof up meant that Q1 had glorious casualties – Fernando Alonso, Felipe Massa, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. Button did make it to Q2 but his car aquaplaned and then beached on the gravel, ending his qualifying. The Mercedes GP drivers just about escaped the fate of these two teams.

Q2 saw more rain and by the time Q3 came about, track conditions resembled last year’s downpour moments and the session was red-flagged for sometime. But the rain cleared soon enough and all ten came out on full wets except Webber who decided to go on intermediates. The cars had enough time to do three laps each and that worked in his favor for considerable water went off to make his inters the optimum tyres to be on.

Nico Rosberg finished second for Mercedes GP and Michael Schumacher (eighth) will be scratching his head for the wet track ought to have equalized any advantage that his team mate enjoyed the previous two weekends. That Rosberg now leads the seven time champion 3-0 in qualifying makes one wonder. Sebastien Vettel will be starting third and he will be one to watch out for at the start, wet or dry.

The role reversal meant that both Force Indias are in top ten though one expects Tonio Liuzzi to drop out if the ‘backmarkers’ are successful in their charge while Adrian Sutil will be hoping for a change in luck. As it is Kimi Raikkonen isn’t on the grid so he can be happy starting in the wet. Nico Hulkenberg qualified his Williams fifth in what is a major result for the rookie. Also in Q2 were both Toro Rosso cars, the Lotus of Heikki Kovalainen and Timo Glock’s Virgin. India’s Karun Chandhok outqualified his team-mate Bruno Senna for the first time this season and that will count as a major boost for him. He has been gaining ever since his wasteful outing in the first race at Bahrain.

It is expected to rain tomorrow, but wet or dry, the race is expected to be a spectacular one. Too much is at stake in terms of championship points and the two Ferraris and McLarens will have the pace whatever be the conditions. Much will depend how they fare at the start – they need not to be tangled in the first couple of winding corners at Sepang and if the middle placed teams can stand up to this oncoming pressure from behind, we are in for a cracker of a Malaysian GP!