Sebastian Vettel was in a world of his own in qualifying as he thrust his Red Bull to a fastest time of 1m 18.773s, and his second-run lap of 1m 18.832s would have been sufficient to win him the pole too as team mate Mark Webber could not improve on his first effort of 1m 19.184s.

The only man to get anywhere near the Australian was Fernando Alonso with 1m 19.987s for Ferrari, then there was a big gap to Felipe Massa on 1m 20.331s in the other Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton who achieved McLaren’s dream with a top-five time, 1m 20.499s.

There was another big gap then to Nico Rosberg in sixth place for Mercedes on 1m 21.082s, and Vitaly Petrov did a great job to out-qualify Renault team mate Robert Kubica for the first time, with 1m 21.229s to 1m 21.338s. Pedro de la Rosa will start ninth for BMW Sauber on 1m 21.411s, and Nico Hulkenberg 10th for Williams on 1m 21.710s.

There were some key fallers in Q2, when Mark Webber set the pace with 1m 19.531s. Jenson Button was the first of them, his 1m 21.292s for McLaren being good enough only for 11th place ahead of Rubens Barrichello on 1m 21.331s for Williams, Adrian Sutil on 1m 21.517s for Force India and Michael Schumacher on 1m 21.630s for Mercedes.

Then the Toro Rossos of Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari sandwiched Vitantonio Liuzzi’s Force India; the Swiss posted 1m 21.897s, the Italian did not improve on his first-run time of 1m 21.927s, and the Spaniard’s 1m 21.998s was not enough to stop him falling behind his team mate.

Surprisingly, BMW Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi failed to make it through Q1, having been firmly in the midfield all weekend. That was good news for Sutil, who had been on the bubble and vulnerable with 1m 22.080s. As Vettel set the pace with 1m 20.417s, the Japanese driver’s best was 1m 22.222s.

Timo Glock got his Virgin going well to annex new team honours with 1m 24.050s, but it was close with the Lotuses of Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli on 1m 24.120s and 1m 24.199s apiece.