McLaren pair happy in points after qualifying woes

Qualifying in 20^th place following a team misjudgement on the Malaysian rain, Hamilton’s chances of securing championship points looked tough when forecasted showers failed to materialise at the Sepang circuit.

Team mate and world champion Jenson Button also finished in the points in eighth, behind winner Sebastian Vettel, after qualifying 17^th.

“Overall I’m well happy with that,” Hamilton told reporters. “I could not ask for any more — 20^th to sixth. I really think the team deserved it. So we’ll take forward a lot of positives with us into the next race.

“I couldn’t see a thing when you went down the inside of A1 the dust that came up was incredible.”

Hamilton’s charge through the field left him in second place at one point but he could not quite catch Vettel when the Red Bull driver exited the pits just ahead of the Briton on lap 24.

But after pitting himself, Hamilton was denied a better finish by a strong defensive drive from Force India’s Adrian Sutil, who managed to hold off the 2008 world champion for more than a third of the race.

“I tried my best to get past Adrian but he was very smart at getting clean exits and was simply too fast down the straights. He drove a fantastic race, actually faultless, in fact.”

Hamilton is sixth in the drivers’ standings on 31 points, eight behind leader Felipe Massa of Ferrari while Button is fourth on 35.

Button was forced to show his defensive qualities as his early decision to change tyres after 10 laps failed to pay off.

“I took the gamble to pit early as I made a terrible start,” he said. “I think I made a mistake going to the option tyre immediately because I had no real grip at all in the high speed. It was terrible, so I just couldn’t overtake.

“The problem was I was on the prime for so long... it was very, very difficult, the cars behind were two seconds a lap quicker so to try and hold them off was very difficult.

“Fighting for eighth I didn’t know it was going to be so difficult but yeah it was good to get some points,” added Button, who won in Australia last week after a similar early tyre change paid off.