McLaren, Ferrari caught out

Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton both admitted that McLaren were caught out by the wet conditions in qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix.

The pair respectively start the race 17th and 20th on the grid, with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa qualifying 19th and 21st at Sepang after they too made the wrong call weather-wise.

Both teams kept their drivers in the pits during the first qualifying session in the expectation that the track, which was damp after earlier rain, would dry out.

In the event though more rain fell, leaving all four trying desperately to reach the next session after rivals had already set times.

All of them either spun or left the sodden track, with only Button going quick enough to make session two.

However, with his car having become beached on the gravel after setting his time, the defending world champion was still unable to progress - Button also fearing the incident might have damaged his car.

"We thought the first rainstorm was it, and there was nothing else coming, so we waited. I guess events proved it was the wrong thing to do," he said.

"My first lap on inters felt okay. The thing is, you get no real warning; the first sector of the lap was quite dry, then you get to the fast left-right and it's really wet. I just aquaplaned off and got stuck in the gravel. I couldn't do anything about it.

"I just hope I haven't damaged anything on the car because I was sat in the gravel with the engine running for some time, hoping to get pulled out.

"It was a strange, disappointing session - both Lewis and I went out early. But, even so, I'm in front of three of my world championship rivals on tomorrow's grid, and I suppose that's the best way of looking at it."

Out of luck

Hamilton's lowly place on the grid came after he dominated practice in dry conditions on the opening day.

He was also narrowly outpaced by eventual polesitter Mark Webber during Saturday morning's final practice session, also held in the dry.

"This was just one of those days," Hamilton said. "It had been a very good weekend for us up until qualifying started, and the simple fact is that we didn't expect it to rain any more.

"We went out at a similar time to the other top teams, and as a result quite a lot of us were all out of luck.

"By the time I got out there, there were lots of yellow flags about, so you just couldn't nail it - and then it started to rain more heavily. You couldn't feel a thing -, it was so, so slippery.

"It was easy to come off - I had a spin on my first lap, in fact - but I did the best job I could in the circumstances.

"I'd been fastest all weekend, but what can we do? We've just got to shrug it off. And, as I always, say, I'll never give up.

"That's why I'm not only focusing on the fast cars around me, I'm focusing on everyone - including those who are quite a few rows in front of me. So I'm looking forward to tomorrow, and I'm going to race my heart out."