Vettel takes pole, ahead of Ferrari duo

F1 Grand Prix, GP Bahrain, Bahrain International Circuit

Sebastian Vettel has grabbed pole position with his Red Bull which he himself dubbed Luscious Liz. Felipe Massa is with him on the front row, with Fernando Alonso half a second behind in third. Lewis Hamilton is 4th, while Michael Schumacher didn't get further than 7th place.

The first part of qualifying passed without any incidents, despite the fear of traffic problems due to the higher number of cars on the track. Fernando Alonso eventually came out on top, comfortably going through to Q2.

On the rear end of the pack, the new teams were unsurprisingly struggling, but along with them is Alguersuari who will start from 18th position on tomorrow's grid. The Spaniard made a big slide in his final quick lap, effectively ruining his chances to get through.

Behind him will be Timo Glock, putting his Virgin ahead of the quickest lotus of Trulli. Kovalainen, Di Grassi, Senna and Chandhok are behind them.

The next 15 minutes kicked off with Webber and Buemi charging on track as soon as the pitlight went green. 10 minutes later, everyone is back in the box to prepare for a final attempt in the last few minutes.

Buemi is the first to complete his flying lap, but after him the cars are fairly close behind each other. The man under pressure is especially Jenson Button who is 11th ahead of his final attempt.

With the clock on 0, Button just manages to be 10th, with Michael Schumacher marginally faster in 9th place. The 7-time champion made slight mistake and therefore could not improve the time that was already on the sheets.

Out after Q2 are Barrichello, Liuzzi, Hulkenberg, De La Rosa, Buemi, Kobayashi and Petrov.

In Q3, Hamilton is the first one on track, followed by the Ferrari's of Massa and Alonso. After crossing the finish line, Alonso is slightly ahead of Massa while Hamilton is 1.7s slower. All three are on the softer tyre.

The Red Bull and Mercedes cars opt for a single flying lap and wait until 3 minutes left on the clock to come out with everybody on the softer tyre.

Vettel then slices off nearly a full second off of Alonso's first time to grab pole position. The others still improved with only the Ferrari's coming close to Vettel's time. Massa is second, Alonso third, and Hamilton fourth, 1.1s behind the pole man.