Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes nail dramatic turnaround as the paddock feels for Sebastian Vettel in Malaysia

When it comes to dramatic turnarounds, Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes have it nailed right now.

Fresh from a surprise victory in the recent Singapore GP, in which his car performed far better in the race than it had when Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari ran amok in practice, they came here believing that their silver car would probably be pre-eminent on a circuit that appeared to suit it perfectly.

Instead, the fell flat on their faces on Friday, as Ferrari and Red Bull ran rings around them. A revised aerodynamic package needed a lot more work – team boss Toto Wolff actually spoke of a “fundamental” problem in the set-up.

Yet Hamilton will start tomorrow’s final Malaysia GP from the 70th pole position of his career.

On top of that, Vettel will start the race in exactly the opposite position, at the back of the grid.

So far this has been a drama in three parts.

First, there was Ferrari’s speed on Friday as Mercedes struggled.

Then there was the joint decision to play safe and revert Hamilton’s car to Singapore specification while leaving team-mate Valtteri Bottas with the new configuration. Hamilton liked it in today’s final practice session, then went into beast mode yet again when the chips were down in qualifying.

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The third act starred Vettel, who was advised “Stop the car, stop the car,” as he crept into the pits at the end of that final practice session. There was a problem with the engine that required it to be changed before qualifying, but when that began he crawled agonisingly back to the pits complaining that it felt like his turbocharger wasn’t working. Gradually, the 20 minutes ticked away in Q1. With five left it seemed the problem was cured, but then the red-clad mechanics’ dispirited body language told the story; Ferrari number 5 was not going anywhere. Vettel’s chances of a pole position that could reinvigorate his flagging championship campaign were over.

So it became a fight between his team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen, and Hamilton, possibly with intervention from that darkest horse, birthday boy Max Verstappen who ceased to be a teenager today.

And it was some battle.

After Raikkonen had been fastest in final practice, Hamilton hit back with fastest time in Q1, 1m 31.605s. But as Bottas was fastest with 1m 30.803s in Q2, Raikkonen was fractions ahead of Verstappen and Hamilton.

Yet again, Hamilton dug deepest in the first runs in Q3. The result, a blistering lap of 1m 30.009s as Raikkonen managed 1m 30.308s for second. So everything depended upon their final runs.

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This time, Hamilton came up short and failed to improve. But Raikkonen did. All round his lap he seemed to have the tiniest edge, until the final corner. He crossed the line in 1m 30.121s, which meant he missed his first pole since Monaco by just 0.045s.

“It was okay, but obviously when you get that close it’s disappointing not to get it,” he said. “But there are always places to improve, you never get 100 per cent. It just wasn’t enough today, but that’s how it goes some days. And it’s a shame for Seb, but I’m sure he’ll be good tomorrow. It’s a long race, and tough on the tyres, so I have a good feeling.”

Verstapppen’s speed is also a threat to both Hamilton and Raikkonen, whose teams can turn up their motors more in qualifying than Red Bull’s supplier Renault can. The now 20-year-old phenomenon was thus very chuffed to come with four-tenths of them, especially as Red Bull’s Friday race pace was spectacular.

“For sure if it rains it will be a good opportunity,” he said cheerfully. “Actually, I’m very happy to be up here because the whole weekend I have been up and down in terms of happiness with the car. Except for the final run in Q3, it was really well balanced, so I can’t complain be third here on this track. That’s perfect on my birthday, and the long runs have been looking good. I want to have a good Sunday for once…”

Last time out, of course, he was involved in a collision at the start with the Ferraris, which eliminated all three.

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“I don’t want to be sandwiched!” he remarked with a laugh when asked what he was looking.

“I want to try and get further than 100 metres. I don’t want to be hit!” Raikkonen deadpanned.

While both of them have a very keen idea what to expect of their cars, after the way things have run so far this weekend for them, Hamilton goes into the race with a degree of uncertainty.

“I had no idea how things would go today,” he said. “I’m sorry what happened to Seb, but our engineers made a great turnaround somehow and the car felt great. Even so, it’s a big surprise to be up here with these guys, but I’m very grateful.

“It was such a difficult day yesterday, because I didn’t know where we stood. I didn’t sleep well last night, not knowing whether we could fix the issue. I found out in the final practice that it was much better, but it still looked like Ferrari were still a little bit ahead, so we had some big calls to make on what changes we should do before qualifying.

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“My first lap in Q3 was a very nice one, and I have no idea where it came from, to be honest. I was a little surprised myself. I was able to extract a little bit more from the car.”

How good his car will be in the race is the unknown quantity.

“I may be starting in the perfect position but these guys will be strong. Red Bull had great race pace yesterday. But we did a five-lap run at the end of practice today and the car was in a much better position, but still four to five tenths off the other guys. We’ll see tomorrow if that’s still the case but we made those changes going into quallie and they worked, so I hope we’ll be in good shape for the race.”

With Hamilton looking at a three-way battle down to the first corner, Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo also potentially in the mix, and Vettel having to fight through from the back, plus the possibility of rain, Malaysia is unlikely to sign off with a dull final encounter.