[3] The race was won by Sebastian Vettel leading a one-two finish for the Red Bull-Renault team with Mark Webber coming in second place.

[4] Mark Webber took pole position for Red Bull Racing, on a wet and wild day of Qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix.

The brave switch Webber made to intermediate tyres, after a delay during Q3, as a heavy storm lashed the circuit, proved pivotal – as the track started to dry in the last moments of qualifying.

[5] The weather provided numerous high-profile casualties during the early period of the session, as both McLaren and Ferrari drivers inexplicably opted to remain in their garages while the rest of the field set banker laps, before the rain arrived.

Jenson Button had set a lap time that was good enough to advance from Q1, but he ended up beached in the gravel, meaning that he would not take his place in Q2.

Prior to the race, Pedro de la Rosa's engine failed as the cars were making their way from the pit lane to their grid positions, and so he did not even take the formation lap.

Both McLarens and both Ferraris charged up the field from their lowly grid positions after failing to properly read the conditions in qualifying.

At the end of lap 1, the top 10 were: Vettel, Webber, Rosberg, Kubica, Adrian Sutil, Schumacher, Nico Hülkenberg, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Vitaly Petrov and Kamui Kobayashi.

Kobayashi, Schumacher and Liuzzi retired in quick succession on laps 8,9 and 12 with engine, loose wheel nut[9] and throttle failures respectively.

This left the top 10 as: Vettel, Webber, Rosberg, Kubica, Sutil, Hülkenberg, Hamilton, Jaime Alguersuari, Massa and Alonso.

The top 10 at the end of lap 26 were: Vettel, Hamilton, Webber, Rosberg, Kubica, Massa, Alonso, Sutil, Button, and Hülkenberg.

Vettel took the chequered flag ahead of Webber, leading a Red Bull one-two,[10] with Rosberg completing the podium in third.

[15] Jarno Trulli was last of the 17 classified finishers, having suffered hydraulic problems, although his teammate Heikki Kovalainen was still running at the end.