Good evening and welcome to LIVE coverage of qualifying at the US Grand Prix at the new Circuit of the Americas track in Austin, Texas. The drivers start their battle for pole at the penultimate round of the season in fifteen minutes from now, 6pm UK time, 12 midday local time.

Join us again tomorrow for the race, which gets underway at 1pm local time - 7pm UK time.

Alonso said in his post race interview he has a funny feeling he's going to get more points than Vettel in Sunday's race and prevent the title going to the German for now. So let's wait and see.

So our top ten on the grid looks like this for Sunday's race at the US Grand Prix: Vettel, Hamilton, Webber, Grosjean, Raikkonen, Schumacher, Massa, Hulkenberg, Alonso and Maldonado.

Former World Champion Alonso heads straight through his garage to face the media, stating that the race will be difficult from ninth on the grid.

Hamilton had a real go there but Vettel is looking majestic at this new track and takes a deserved pole after dominating all weekend.

A great 1m35.766s effort for Hamilton, but Vettel's team are on the radio telling him he has secured pole with a best effort of 1m35.657s.

Alonso needs a big improvement, he is down in seventh.

Hamilton takes the lead briefly but then Vettel strikes back immediately with a 1m35.877s, great stuff from the German.

Grosjean in his Lotus machine is 2.5s ahead of the rest of the pack with a 1m37.227s but the big guns are stepping up the pace.

The drivers are warming up their tyres and getting ready for some real action. No-one is setting proper times yet.

1m51.627s for Schumacher to set the first time of the session, Vettel is now on his first lap.

All 10 drivers on track now but no fast times registered yet.

Alonso and Massa are out on track, joining Hamilton, Maldonado and Schumacher on the circuit.

Schumacher gets the final mini session started as he heads out in his Mercedes machine. He is fifth overall at present.

So we're down to the final 10 minutes and it looks unlikely that anyone can prevent a Vettel pole in Q3.

Alonso ended up ninth in Q2, more than a second slower than teammate Massa and nearly 1.5s slower than Vettel. Though the Spaniard is still fourth overall.

Qualifying is over for Senna, Button, Di Resta, Vergne, Perez, Kobayashi and Rosberg. Button had a throttle problem with three minutes to go and it cost him dearly. Rosberg will be gutted, his team mate Schumacher was eighth in that run - ahead of Alonso who is having a difficult day.

Vettel has improved his time to 1m35.796s and is 0.5s ahead of his nearest rival, team mate Webber as Q2 ends.

All over for Button as he is pushed into the garage and is out of the top ten.

Throttle trouble for Button who heads to the pits and drops into the elimination zone.