World champion Sebastian Vettel destroyed the opposition after a slow start today to get pole position for the Malaysian Formula One Grand Prix in a wet qualifying session.

Red Bull's Vettel recovered from modest times in the first two of the three sessions, putting the hammer down on a partly wet track in the last round to finish almost a second ahead of Felipe Massa of Ferrari, with Fernando Alonso third in the second Ferrari.

Vettel got his second pole of the season and 38th overall in 1 minute 49.674 seconds for the 5.543-kilometres lap at the Sepang circuit in a drying circuit after some rain towards the end of the second round in sweltering conditions.

Lewis Hamilton was fourth for his new team Mercedes, Mark Webber fifth in the second Red Bull, Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg sixth and Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus, winner of the season-opener in Australia last week, seventh.

The three-times reigning champion Vettel barely got through the first two rounds, placing 15th and ninth respectively, before showing his true class in the last round when the teams exchanged their dry weather slick tyres for intermediates.

"It was an interesting qualifying as we knew the rain was on the way. We expected some at the beginning of qualifying so we took a bit of a different approach to other people," Vettel said.

"Q2 was quite on edge and I think the rain probably helped us a little bit otherwise we would have had to go out again. It was just enough to go to Q3 where with the circuit drying. It was clear that it was probably better to change tyres (during Q3). I think we did the right thing.

"I'm a bit surprised by the gap. I had a decent lap and we managed to save tyres which could be crucial for tomorrow. If you start in the front, you always want to finish there as well."

Tyre problems

Vettel failed to win from pole in Australia as all the teams are still learning about the new tyres. Vettel said that "the tyres are not as fast as the car."

Massa said that the rain helped Ferrari to second and third on the grid as he beat the team's number one driver Alonso again in qualifying.

"I don't know if we would be able to be second and third in the dry. There were some other fast cars. So maybe the rain helped a bit," the Brazilian said.

Alonso won last year's Malaysian race from eighth place on the grid and hopes that the Ferrari will have good race pace in unpredictable conditions.

"We are not sure about the performance of the car. Every long run we do is inconsistent. We need to see how the race goes. We have not had big problems during the long runs on Friday. In Melbourne, the race pace was OK so there is no reason not to be optimistic tomorrow," the Spaniard said.

The start could be crucial, and, given the rain today and the use of intermediates there, all drivers can chose from soft or hard dry weather tyres at the start tomorrow. Normally the 10 top drivers must use the set of tyres with which they finished qualifying.

- dpa