After an encouraging Australian Grand Prix the Williams F1 team was now at the Sepang circuit for the 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix. With the we4ather hot the opening Friday practice would get underway with Vergne the first driver out onto the track. For Williams Pastor Maldonado would be first out for his installation lap while for this session Bruno Senna would be replaced by Valtteri Bottas, and he would also complete his installation lap. Pastor would put in a second lap prior to returning to the pits. Valtteri would do the same seeing both Williams cars back in their pits. Pirelli would be supplying the medium and hard tyres for this race weekend. Di Resta would be the first driver to set a time with a 2m:04.524 but it would be Glock who would set the first competitive time with a 1m:44.935.

He would improve with a 1m:43.487, while we had both HRT's out on the track. Button and Raikkonen were both out with Button on the harder tyre. Button would set a 1m:39.323 as Massa also took to the track. Perez was now second with a 1m:42.858. Massa was now second followed by Kobayashi and Perez. But Raikkonen would go fastest with a 1m:39.128. More driver were taking to the track including Schumacher, Grosjean, and Alonso. But for Grosjean he would have a problem reporting that there was something lose at the rear of the car. He would slowly return to the pits. Karthikeyan was seventh with a 1m:45.360. We would now also have Webber, Petrov, Rosberg, and Hulkenberg out on the track. It was now Schumacher's turn to go fastest with a 1m:39.083. So with an hour remaining the order was Schumacher from Raikkonen, Button, Massa, Kobayashi, Perez, Glock, Karthikeyan, Kovalainen, and Di Resta in tenth.

But Webber would set a 1m:39.657 to be fourth while Kovalainen would improve to be eighth. Both Hamilton and Vettel were out on the track. Rosberg was now fourth, 1m:39.323, as the track became quite busy. Hamilton would go straight to the top of the times with a 1m:38.598. Rosberg was now third, 1m:39.095, right behind his team-mate. Both Williams cars were now out on the track as Vettel went fastest with a 1m:38.535. Valtteri would set a 1m:41.616 to be fifteenth after his first timed lap. Rosberg would again improve to be third with a 1m:38.813. For Force India Hulkenberg would move up to seventh, 1m:39.440. Pastor's first lap would see him twelfth with a lap time of 1m:40.160. Despite locking up at the last corner Hamilton would again go fastest with am:38.021. Pastor was on a better lap that would see him ninth, 1m:39.831.

Webber would also find time to be fifth, 1m:39.092. Valtteri had improve his time, 1m:40.359, but was still down in fourteenth. Di Resta was twelfth with a 1m:40.001. The track was becoming quite clear with many drivers pitting after their first runs. Valtteri was able to find a large amount of time setting a 1m:39.724 to be ninth pushing Pastor down to tenth. Di Resta would improve to be seventh with a 1m:39.298. While for Karthikeyan he would stop out on the track with a gear change issue. Grosjean would improve to be ninth but would find further time with a 1m:39.086 to be fifth. He would again lower his time with a 1m:38.919 but remained fifth. Valtteri and Pastor would both back in their pits, currently in eleventh and twelfth. Hulkenberg was tenth with a 1m:39.440. Alonso was down in fifth, 1m:40.091, while Massa was thirteenth.

Pic had yet to set a time for Marussia as drivers started to return to the tarck with just over half an hour remaining. Both Mercedes cars were out along with Valtteri for Williams. The Torro Rosso cars of Vergne and Ricciardo were down in sixteenth and seventeenth. Vettl would leave the pits followed by Hamilton shortly after. Pastor was also now back out on the track with the hard tyre been the tyre of choice for all the drivers. De la Rosa was complaining of a total lack of grip with his HRT. He would return to the track as at the front of the top ten only Webber was out on the track. For Williams Valtteri had pitted, currently in eleventh. Pastor was out a loner data gathering run, currently in twelfth. Webber would pit while Grosjean would return to the track. Pastor had also pitted leaving just a handful of cars out on the track.

With just over fifteen minutes remaining both Sauber's would take to the track. Pic would finally return to the track after a long time in his pit. He would set a 1m:48.533 to be slowest behind the HRT's. Rosberg was now back out along with Massa. Raikkonen would be next back out but with twelve minutes remaining there would be a rush of drivers coming back out including both Williams cars. Pic would set a 1m:44.580 to move ahead of the HRT's. Massa would pit still down in thirteenth. At Red Bull the mechanics were working on the right rear of his car. Raikkonen would pit still in seventh as Kovalainen would improve to be seventeenth, running on the medium tyre. Hamilton had also come out for his final run. Both Mercedes cars had pitted with Rosberg third and Schumacher fourth. Button was unlikely to return as his mechanics worked under his car. For Williams both Valtteri and Pastor were on longer runs with no improvement in their times. Both had completed twenty one laps.

Webber was finally able to return to the track for a few minutes of track time. So with the end of the session it would be Hamilton fastest from Vettel, Rosberg, Schumacher, Grosjean, Webber, Raikkonen, Di Resta, Button, and Hulkenberg in tenth. of the top ten only down to Grosjean were within one second of Hamilton's time. For Williams Valtteri and Pastor would remain in eleventh and twelfth in what was an uneventful session, one more of gathering data for the rest of the weekend.

Pos  Driver         	   Team		   	  Time       Laps
 1.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m38.021s  9
 2.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m38.535s  21
 3.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m38.813s  21
 4.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m38.826s  19
 5.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          1m38.919s  17
 6.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m39.092s  20
 7.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault          1m39.128s  22
 8.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   1m39.298s  23
 9.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m39.323s  15
10.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   1m39.440s  19
11.  Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Renault       1m39.724s  23
12.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault       1m39.783s  23
13.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m39.896s  16
14.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m39.910s  21
15.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m39.980s  23
16.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m40.099s  23
17.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault       1m40.247s  19
18.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m40.469s  23
19.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault       1m40.857s  25
20.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m41.085s  23
21.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth      1m43.170s  18
22.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth      1m44.580s  14
23.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth           1m45.360s  8
24.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth           1m45.528s  18