Vettel storms to pole

But while one Red Bull sat on top of the qualifying results with a lap 0.7 seconds quicker than the McLarens, the other will start the race in 18th after a disaster for Mark Webber.

His car was repaired from its morning problems in time to join the session, but appeared to be running without KERS and was kept on the harder tyres at the end of Q1 as everyone else near the cut-off went for softs. As Michael Schumacher and Pastor Maldonado made late jumps up the order, Webber found himself 18th and eliminated.

Jenson Button emerged as Vettel's closest rival, but even the Brit was 0.7s adrift of pole as he beat his McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton to the outside front row position by 0.042s.

Nico Rosberg gave Mercedes its best result of the year so far with fourth place, only 0.2s down on the McLarens. He comfortably beat the Ferraris, which share row three, with Fernando Alonso ahead of Felipe Massa.

The upper midfield pack was shuffled by a late red flag in Q2, caused by Vitaly Petrov's Renault grinding to a halt on track at Turn 6.

That happened with two minutes left on the Q2 clock, at which point both Toro Rossos and both Force Indias were inside the top 10, while the Saubers, Williams, Mercedes and Petrov's team-mate Nick Heidfeld were not.

In the scramble that followed after the green, both STR drivers and Paul di Resta (Force India) hung on to their Q3 places, while Rosberg was the only man to move from outside the cut-off into the top 10, at the expense of Force India's Adrian Sutil.

Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi went on to claim the fourth row positions ahead of di Resta. Forced to sit out Q3, Petrov was left 10th.

A mistake at the hairpin left Michael Schumacher's Mercedes 14th behind Sutil and the Saubers. Heidfeld could not do better than 16th, placing him between the two Williams.

Webber's exit was the only surprise of Q1, which also saw the departure of the Lotus, Virgin and Hispania cars. Jerome D'Ambrosio outqualified Virgin team-mate Timo Glock for the first time, and both Hispanias were comfortably within the 107 per cent margin.