Michael Schumacher claimed his first pole position of the season with a cool performance during qualifying in Malaysia, fending off a stiff challenge from the Williams team.  DHL Jordan Honda achieved a predicted top ten qualifying position for Giancarlo Fisichella, the Italian setting the 9th fastest time, while team mate Takuma Sato was back in 15th spot.

Although the Michelin shod teams appeared to have an advantage, Michael Schumacher set a time of 1.35.266 to take pole position from Juan Pablo Montoya's Williams, the second Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello frustrating Ralf Schumacher by taking the third fastest time and demoting the World Champion's brother to fourth place on the grid.

With the two McLarens fifth and sixth, Kimi Raikkonen pipping David Coulthard, Nick Heidfeld produced a strong performance for Sauber by taking seventh ahead of an improving Jensen Button who trounced team mate Jarno Trulli by claiming eighth position with the Italian back in 12th.

For DHL Jordan Honda the session started well, Sato being the third car out onto the track ten minutes into the session and storming around in 1.38.179  at his first attempt, a full second faster than he had managed in morning practice.  On his second run it appeared that Taku may have momentarily got in Michael Schumacher's way during his warm-up lap, and the Ferrari driver repaid him handsomely by blocking the Japanese driver through the S's which ruined his lap.  His third run netted Taku his fastest qualifying lap of 1.38.141, and although he held 12th position at the time he failed to improve on his final run and was beaten by Felipe Massa, Jarno Trulli and Jacques Villeneuve, dropping to 15th.

"After the problems we had in Melbourne this was my first real experience of Formula One qualifying and I am relatively satisfied with the performance.  Overall I am quite happy and very much looking forward to building on today's performance in tomorrow's race."

Giancarlo Fisichella started his runs with a 1.37.940 and was 10th fastest after everyone had completed their opening qualifying runs.  His second run saw him set his fastest time of the session, a 1.37.536 taking him into 9th position which he held until the end.  His third and fourth runs saw him set improved first sector times, but he was down in sector two.

"Today was a pretty good performance," he said afterwards.  "Our target was to be in the top eight and we are just outside that, so I am happy.  The balance of the car was good.  I made some mistakes on the last runs so might have been able to improve on the lap time a little, but basically I think we found the limit today.  The goal for tomorrow is to finish the race and to do so in the points."

After the first lap accident which saw the opening race of the season reduced to almost half the field within 500 metres, the teams and drivers are all hoping for an incident free opening to tomorrow's Grand Prix.