Force India's first pole

The veteran Italian was joined on the front row by compatriot Jarno Trulli in a topsy-turvy top three which sees Nick Heidfeld on the second row in the BMW.

Fisichella expected his time of 1:46.308 to come under threat from Red Bull title hopefuls Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, but they were unable to put in a fast last lap and will start eighth and ninth.

It was the fourth pole of his career and first since Malaysia in 2006 when driving for frontrunning Renault. Force India are yet to score a point in 29 races.

In fourth was Rubens Barrichello, who will have been thrilled to see Brawn GP team-mate Button - 18 points clear of him at the summit of the drivers' standings - flounder down in 14th.

In the sister BMW-Sauber F1.09 Robert Kubica took fifth spot ahead of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, while Luca Badoer again struggled in the other F60 and will start dead last after spinning out at the end of Q1.

Timo Glock was a tenth of a second quicker than the Red Bulls in the 10-minute final mini-session while Nico Rosberg of Williams was the other driver to make it through to Q3 and starts in 10th.

McLaren's Hamilton thought he had done enough to go through as time ticked down in the 15-minute-long second run-out, but ultimately fell into the drop zone behind Adrian Sutil in the other Force India.

Renault's Fernando Alonso will also be disappointed after a late flurry of fast Q2 laps dumped him into 13th ahead of Button and Heikki Kovalainen in the second McLaren MP4-24.

The bottom five positions, set in the opening 20-minute mini-session, were occupied by Toro Rosso drivers Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari, Williams' Kazuki Nakajima, Romain Grosjean of Renault and the hapless Badoer.