Hamilton tries to pass Alonso and Webber follows but Hamilton has to yield and he and Webber make contact and both go off. They both rejoin but have lost places and Webber has to pit for a new nose,

Hamilton is now 6th and Webber is 9th. Schumacher makes it to 10th and salvages one point from a fairly disasterous race. Re early accident and stop for new nose.

Result:-

Button
Kubica
Massa
Alonso
Rosberg
Hamilton
Liuzi
De La Rosa
Webber
Schumacher

Malaysian GP this weekend.

Qualifying today - programme starts at 8am with car action from 9am.

Malaysian Grand Prix

Sepang, 2-4 April 2010

Fri 2 Apr: Practice 1 0300-0430; Practice 2 0700-0830

Sat 3 Apr: Practice 3 0600-0700; Qualifying 0900

Sun 4 Apr: Race 0900

Oh wow, just in and it's MEGA wet out there. They all seem to have started on intermediates and they're flying off right left and centre.
Even those that are now on full wets are struggling.

Big names out in Q1.
Trulli
Hamilton
Alonso
Massa

Button managed to get through to Q2, but he beached the car in the gravel and won't actually take part in Q2. So he  will start the race in P17 (penalties not withstanding).

Q2 started and the forecast is for more heavy rain in in a few minutes.

Mixture of full wets and intermediates on the cars.

Webber's just dropped to 11th and the rain's getting heavier in places.

Webber pops into 7th, but there are others still out there.

All the remaining big names make it through to Q1.

Q3, they're all on full wets, I believe, because it's torrential rain again.

RED FLAG!!!!
SESSION STOPPED....with 7:17 still to go.

Indefinite Delay!

Apparently we now have a further 2 hours in which to finish the session before it is officially abandoned.

Q1 starting again in 2 minutes....but heavy rain expected again two minutes later again.

Webber's on intermediates apparently, but Vettel's on full wets.

Webber's first flying lap on intermediates didn't look too good as he only got to P7, but his second run put him in P1 and his third lap was over a second faster again!

Grid positions (barring penalties)

Pos	Country	Driver	Car	Team	Qualifying timeQ1	Qualifying time Q2	Qualifying time Q3
1	australia	Mark Webber	6	Red Bull-Renault	1:51.886	1:48.210	1:49.327
2	germany	Nico Rosberg	4	Mercedes GP	1:52.560	1:47.417	1:50.673
3	germany	Sebastian Vettel	5	Red Bull-Renault	1:47.632	1:46.828	1:50.789
4	germany	Adrian Sutil	14	Force India-Mercedes	1:49.479	1:47.085	1:50.914
5	germany	Nico Hulkenberg	10	Williams-Cosworth	1:49.664	1:47.346	1:51.001
6	poland	Robert Kubica	11	Renault	1:46.283	1:46.951	1:51.051
7	brazil	Rubens Barrichello	9	Williams-Cosworth	1:50.301	1:48.371	1:51.511
8	germany	Michael Schumacher	3	Mercedes GP	1:52.239	1:48.400	1:51.717
9	japan	Kamui Kobayashi	23	BMW Sauber-Ferrari	1:48.467	1:47.792	1:51.767
10	italy	Vitantonio Liuzzi	15	Force India-Mercedes	1:49.922	1:48.238	1:52.254
11	russia	Vitaly Petrov	12	Renault	1:47.952	1:48.760
12	spain	Pedro de la Rosa	22	BMW Sauber-Ferrari	1:47.153	1:48.771
13	switzerland	Sebastien Buemi	16	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:48.945	1:49.207
14	spain	Jaime Alguersuari	17	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:48.655	1:49.464
15	finland	Heikki Kovalainen	19	Lotus-Cosworth	1:52.875	1:52.270
16	germany	Timo Glock	24	Virgin-Cosworth	1:52.398	1:52.520
17	great britain	Jenson Button	1	McLaren-Mercedes	1:52.211	1:52.211
18	italy	Jarno Trulli	18	Lotus-Cosworth	1:52.884
19	spain	Fernando Alonso	8	Ferrari	1:53.044
20	great britain	Lewis Hamilton	2	McLaren-Mercedes	1:53.050
21	brazil	Felipe Massa	7	Ferrari	1:53.283
22	india	Karun Chandhok	20	Hispania-Cosworth	1:56.299
23	brazil	Bruno Senna	21	Hispania-Cosworth	1:57.269
24	brazil	Lucas di Grassi	25	Virgin-Cosworth	1:59.977

I missed the quali, but what the hell happened to the McLarens

They played a waiting game in Q1, thinking the rain would stop and they could dash out and put in a quick lap at the end.
But the rain didn't stop, in fact it just got heavier and heavier and so they had to go out when lap times were getting slower and slower. Shot themselves in the foot.

Of course, if Button hadn't beached his car at the end of Q1 and had actually taken part in Q2, he might have got a higher place....but he did and he didn't.

He said the car just aquaplaned off.

Tyre choice then.................they didn't think

Definitely tyre choice played a big part in it. They were on intermediates when they should have been on full wets, and by the time they changed to full wets. there wasn't enough water shifted from the track and they were still having problems.