Switzerland's Jani on Sepang pole

The Toro Rosso test driver struggled on his return to A1GP action at Beijing earlier this month, and he admitted that it had taken time to adapt to the car after a season spent driving Formula One cars.

"This is actually my first qualifying session of the season because we didn't get to qualify in China," he said. "It's very hard to drive these cars, but this is a track I like.

"To be quick you have to find a way to slide these cars without losing time, it requires more skill to drive these cars than in F1."

Jonny Reid will line up alongside Jani on the front row for New Zealand, and both teams decided not to run in the final session to save tyres.

Reid will be wary of Nico Hulkenberg who starts in third place for Germany. The pair started from the front row at Brno earlier this season and collided on their way to the first corner.

Hulkenberg was one of several drivers under investigation by the stewards after the session due to a collision he had at turn two with Michael Devaney in the Irish car.

Robbie Kerr did a solid job to secure fourth on the grid for Great Britan, while Cheng Cong Fu put the Chinese car in the top five.

Jeroen Bleekemolen showed an improvement from practice for the Netherlands to qualify sixth, ahead of a slightly disappointed Alex Yoong at the Malaysian team's home race.

"The car wasn't behaving how we thought it would," said Yoong, "and when we made a lot of changes it still didn't do what we expected.

"We also saved our new tyres for the later runs, but the track conditions turned out to be better at the start of qualifying."

Adrian Zaugg will start eighth for South Africa, but the Zandvoort race winner is another driver under investigation for an incident that held up Phil Giebler in the American car.

Canada's Sean McIntosh qualified ninth for his first A1GP race of this season, just ahead of reigning champions France, who took a double win in Malaysia one year ago.

Championship leaders Mexico had a session to forget, and Salvador Duran will start in the middle of the field for Sunday morning's sprint race.

Australia were another team that struggled, and their progress was hindered by a high speed off at the esses towards the end of the lap for Ryan Briscoe in the third session.

The car suffered front suspension damage, but the Alan Docking Racing crew worked hard to get it fixed in time for Briscoe to complete his final run.

Pos  Team            Driver            Time
 1.  Switzerland     Neel Jani         3:43.014
 2.  New Zealand     Jonny Reid        3:43.305 + 0.291
 3.  Germany         Nico Hulkenberg   3:43.381 + 0.367
 4.  Great Britain   Robbie Kerr       3:43.941 + 0.927
 5.  China           Congfu Cheng      3:44.884 + 1.870
 6.  Netherlands     J. Bleekemolen    3:44.932 + 1.918
 7.  Malaysia        Alex Yoong        3:45.068 + 2.054
 8.  South Africa    Adrian Zaugg      3:45.238 + 2.224
 9.  Canada          Sean McIntosh     3:45.352 + 2.338
10.  France          Nicolas Lapierre  3:45.410 + 2.396
11.  USA             Philip Giebler    3:45.843 + 2.829
12.  Mexico          Salvador Duran    3:46.155 + 3.141
13.  Ireland         Michael Devaney   3:46.220 + 3.206
14.  Czech Republic  Tomas Enge        3:46.407 + 3.393
15.  Brazil          Raphael Matos     3:46.745 + 3.731
16.  Singapore       C. Murchison      3:47.194 + 4.180
17.  Australia       Ryan Briscoe      3:47.711 + 4.697
18.  Indonesia       Ananda Mikola     3:48.249 + 5.235
19.  India           Armaan Ebrahim    3:48.388 + 5.374
20.  Italy           Enrico Toccacelo  3:49.175 + 6.161
21.  Lebanon         Khalil Beschir    3:50.137 + 7.123
22.  Pakistan        Nur Ali           3:59.081 +16.067