Jenson Button clinched his second pole position in a row for the new Brawn GP team at the Malaysian Grand Prix on Saturday while McLarens world champion Lewis Hamilton could qualify only 12th. The 29-year-old Briton,who won the season-opener in Australia last weekend on Brawns debut as heirs to departed Honda,will have Toyotas Italian Jarno Trulli alongside on the front row. Toyotas Timo Glock and fellow-German Nico Rosberg,in a Williams,will fill the second row for what could be a wet and chaotic race that is scheduled to end in the twilight. As in Melbourne,the grid again had an upside-down look with last years big guns well down the pecking order. The pole was the fifth of championship leader Buttons roller-coaster Formula One career and the first time he had done it twice in a season. The Briton has already scored more points this year than in the past two. An hour after qualifying had finished,torrential rain lashed the paddock with flashes of lightning across the darkened skies and thunder crashing around the circuit. Weve got a lot of thinking overnight to put a plan together if it is wet, said Button. We havent run this car yet in the wet so its going to be interesting. Hamilton,at the centre of a storm after last weeks Australian GP,qualified 13th but will start one place up the grid thanks to Sebastien Vettels penalty. Champions Ferrari had a self-inflicted nightmare,with Brazilian Felipe Massa qualifying 16th after a team blunder in assuming wrongly that he had done enough to reach the second session. Team mate Kimi Raikkonen,winner in Malaysia last year,qualified ninth but starts seventh after the penalties to other drivers are taken into account. Force India will have Giancarlo Fisichella 18th on the grid,followed by Adrian Sutil in 19th. The qualifying session saw the Force India drivers just tenths from making the cut into Q2 with a throttle pedal problem plaguing Fisichella. More complaints BMW-Sauber protested the legality of cars used by Brawn GP,Toyota and Williams at the Malaysian GP on Saturday in a repeat of action taken by others in Australia last week. Race stewards again rejected the protest,just as a different set of officials had in Melbourne,and BMW-Sauber said they would appeal.
