SEPANG, Malaysia, March 21, 2008 (AFP) - World championship pacesetter Lewis Hamilton continued his early season domination on Friday, coming out on top in practice for Sunday´s Malaysian Grand Prix.

The 23-year-old McLaren Mercedes-Benz driver produced a fastest lap of one minute and 35.055 seconds in the final five minutes of the afternoon session run in warm and humid conditions at Sepang.

"I am pretty happy with that as the car showed consistent pace all through the session and also good overall speed," said Hamilton.

"Unfortunately, the morning session was not perfect for me as I had a slight problem on the car right at the end."

His hot lap left the British driver 0.1 seconds clear of Brazilian Felipe Massa, who led a Ferrari revival following their dismal weekend at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

Massa led his team-mate, defending world champion Kimi Raikkonen, who was three-tenths of a second off the pace set by Hamilton. The Finn suffered a setback in the morning session when his Ferrari ran out of fuel on the track.

"I lost time in the morning because of a communications problem, but we made up for it later," said Raikkonen. "The car is going well and I am pleased. I worked mainly on the hard tyres, but even with the softer tyres I think we can be competitive."

Massa said he, too, was happy, but complained that he was unable to do the best with his set of soft tyres because "I found myself behind Hamilton, who was going slowly. It´s a shame."

Hamilton´s McLaren team-mate, Finn Heikki Kovalainen, wound up seventh fastest behind fourth-placed Briton Jenson Button, in a Honda, German Sebastian Vettel, who was fifth for Toro Rosso, and sixth-placed Italian Jarno Trulli of Toyota.

The times show that Ferrari appear to have overcome the worst of the gremlins that wrecked their weekend in Australia, but also demonstrate that Hamilton is the man to beat.

He is certainly the man most in demand.

Anything he has said in recent days has been dissected and analysed. Earlier this week, following a few off-the-cuff comments made by former three-times champion Briton Sir Jackie Stewart, he had to defend his decision to stick with his father Anthony as his manager.

On an afternoon when the air temperature rose to 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit) and the track temperature reached 50 degrees, before cooling, it was the relative humidity level that rose to 74 per cent that caused the major discomfort for the drivers and the teams.

All of the drivers, including the super-fit Hamilton, were sweating heavily in the sweltering conditions on the track that encourages overtaking.

But following a morning that saw Briton David Coulthard´s day wrecked when he crashed heavily and badly damaged his Red Bull while his team-mate Australian Mark Webber suffered an engine failure, the afternoon was relatively straightforward.

Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais stopped on the track in the opening minutes and was unable to produce a lap time, joining Coulthard among the afternoon´s non-runners.

Raikkonen, keen to banish his nightmare weekend in Melbourne, was soon fastest on the track and led the times for a long period before Massa took over, only to be outpaced in the closing minutes by Hamilton.

Button´s success underlined a growing feeling that Honda may at last be developing a car and package -- under the guidance of former Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn -- that can run among the pace-setters.