Hello and welcome back to our coverage of this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix, where the action is about to get serious with the qualifying session!

It promises to be a cracker tomorrow. Don't miss it - we'll be back with all the action, so see you then!

Di Resta celebrates his birthday with eighth place, ahead of Buemi and Petrov in 10th.

Hamilton cannot better his McLaren team-mate Button, who starts on the front row. Hamilton claims third, followed by Rosberg, Alonso and Massa.

No one can beat Vettel and the German claims pole for tomorrow's race!

Down comes the flag...

Surely no one's going to better Vettel's incredible time?

Here goes Alonso as he crosses the line on his final flying lap.

Hamilton is employing a one-lap strategy. So too Massa and Alonso.

Alguersuari and Buemi take third and fourth provisionally.

That lap from Vettel is the fastest lap ever seen in Shanghai! So that seems to be pole position for the German then!

Vitaly Petrov: "I don't know what happened, after the second or third corner something was wrong with the car, the throttle was not working, or maybe the gears. I'm very disappointed, we did a big step up and the car was really nice to drive."

Wow! Vettel lays down a 1:33.706 and Button can only muster 1:34.431in response.

Mark Webber: "I thought we had enough to get through. Anyway, we're out."

Vettel and Button are the first out on track.

Here we go! Q3 is under way!

Just nine drivers, due to the exclusion of Petrov, despite his good time.

Which means into the shootout go Hamilton, Button, Vettel, Alonso, Massa, Buemi, Alguersuari, Rosberg and Di Resta.

So, eliminated are Sutil, Perez, Perez, Kobayashi, Schumacher, Barrichello, Heidfeld and Maldonado.

So, not many cars were able to improve after the restart, justifying the decision of Vettel and the McLarens not to go out.

And Heidfeld follows Schumacher out in 16th, but it's better news for birthday boy Paul Di Resta, who makes it to Q3 in 10th!