World champion Michael Schumacher boasted he had driven the perfect lap on Saturday in sweeping to pole position for the Malaysian Grand Prix.
The Ferrari driver secured the 57th pole of his illustrious career with a super-charged lap of one minute 33.074 seconds to pile more pressure on his rivals after victory in the season-opening race in Melbourne.
"Everything was perfect. It was a mind-blowing lap, I have to say," said Schumacher, who is chasing an unprecedented seventh world title.
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Schumacher was 0.641 seconds faster than Australian Mark Webber, who secured his first front-row start for Jaguar in blazing conditions at Sepang.
But Schumacher warned he would be taking nothing for granted on Sunday.
"Malaysia is known to be the hardest race and, inside the cockpit, the heat does make it very hard work," said the German, whose run of three straight victories in Malaysia was broken by McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen last year.
"We know we still have a race to do. We expected it would be tight here and we anticipate a real battle tomorrow."
However, Schumacher still sounded supremely confident after attaining his fifth Malaysian pole since the first race in Sepang five years ago.
"We had difficulties yesterday, but we made the fine tuning and managed to get the car back on the road," said the 35-year-old.
"I wouldn't say I'm concerned about anything."
