Hamilton on pole, both Ferrari's just behind at China

F1 Grand Prix, GP China, Shanghai International Ciruit

Lewis Hamilton has proved McLarens dominance during qualifying as he was three tenths faster than second fastest Kimi Raikkonen. Felipe Massa is third, merely slower than his teammate. Fernando Alonso will be 4th on the grid, beating the McLaren of Kovalainen.

Q1 kicks off under sunny skies, with Piquet the first man out. He is rapidly followed by most of the slower cars of the field. Is is however Glock who puts in the fastest time in the first 5 minutes.

As soon as the Toro Rosso drivers come out, they top the sheets, with Bourdais again ahead of Vettel. The Frenchman appears very much at ease at China and has been ahead since Friday. The title contenders follow, and Hamilton comes out on top comfortably in 1:35.566.

Kubica meanwhile is suffering to get on the pace. With 5 minutes to go he enters the pitlane again, setting only the 17th time. The team immediately add a little inclination on the front wing and check the brakes, as the Pole was complaining about that. It needs no explanation that he will have to improve to keep up his hopes for the championship.

With 3 minutes to go, the McLarens and Ferraris are back on track. Kovalainen improves up to 0.056 away from Hamilton, while neither Ferrari gets closer than 0.4 seconds to the fastest McLaren.

During the final attempts, Kubica just manages to get in, although he is only 14th fastest and he has work to do in order to move up the ranks. David Coulthard on the other hand is out, he appeared to have been hampered by Heidfeld who was on his in-lap. David initially allowed Nick to pass him during his own flying lap, but the BMW Sauber decided to stay ahead of Coulthard during the complete next lap, effectively ruining David's chance to get through to Q2.

Eliminated wih the Scot are Nakajima, Button and the Force India cars.

At the start of Q2, Raikkonen ups his game and puts in a 1:35.355. It appears though as the others also have an extra bit up their sleeve. Kovalainen goes another tenth faster, and Massa improves that another time. Hamilton on the other hand is 0.26s off.

Robert Kubica is then also out on the option tyre, the second hardest compound that Bridstone had available this year. He is only 10th and looks unlikely to go through if BMW Sauber do not quickly find a solution.

Despite a clean lap and warming up his tyres carefully, Robert was just not fast enough. Piquet is 11th and marginally missed out on Q3. He is left aside with Kubica, Glock, Barrichello and Rosberg.

Q3 starts with Raikkonen on top in 1:36.989. Moments later Kovalainen improves that by 0.011 . Hamilton on the other hand again appears to suffer from his nerves as he repeatedly locked up his inside front wheel and is 5th. In fact after setting the fastest sector one, he was 6 tenths slower in the second.

He next lap looks a lot better and is more than 4 tenths faster in sector two. Raikkonen is however faster too and improves three tenths, before Hamilton slices off another three tenths to secure pole position.

Robert Kubica was looking at the spectacle disappointed, one can only try to imagine what goes through the Pole's head...