Having shown his rivals the way in a wet practice, Hamad Al Fardan duly converted his pace into the fastest time in qualifying to claim his first Formula Renault Asia V6 pole position of the year at Sepang, Malaysia.

The Bahraini had been some two seconds off the pace in the first qualifying session but when the heavens opened he made his move to secure pole position for Team Meritus, ahead of Karun Chandhok and Hanss Lin.

"It did not start out well for me, we had problems starting the car in the first session and I had to have a push start. All the way through, I had to contend with some brake problems" said Al Fardan.

"The second period was great and we had luck on our side. I tried to forget all the problems of the first period and managed to pull through and clocked my fastest lap time on the last lap".