Vettel takes another pole, Webber 2nd

F1 Grand Prix, GP China, Shanghai International Ciruit

Sebastian Vettel didn't show much during Q1 and Q2 but managed to squeeze out more when it really mattered. Mark Webber completes Red Bull's front row while Fernando Alonso is the closest contender in 3rd. Nico Rosberg is in 4th place, again beating his teammate.

Qualifying for the Chinese GP is held in typical conditions, dry and cool with an air temperature of 20°C and 30°C on the track.

Both Lotus drivers immediately hit the track as soon as the session was green flagged. Timo Glock initially went fastest of the new teams, but when Ferrari and McLaren came on track with used hard tyres, they easily beat those times by 4 seconds.

Ten minutes into Q1, Hamilton puts in the benchmark time in 1:35.641, even though his carn falsely selected neutral for a split second in turn 6. Jenson Button has suffered similar problems and it may be a point to take care of for McLaren during the rest of the Chinese race weekend.

The Red Bulls waited another 4 minutes before heading to the track and when eventually crossing the finish line, they were quite a bit slower than Hamilton. Webber ended up 3 tenths off of Hamilton's pace, while Vettel is a second slower than the Briton.

At the closing stages, Liuzzi is unable to improve his lap and is surprisingly knocked out in the Force India. Timo Glock is the quickest in he Virgin, topping the Lotus drivers and his teammate Di Grassi. At the rear end of the grid we will find Senna and Chandhok in the Hispania cars.

Q2 then gets underway with Petrov but 12 cars immediately join him on track. Only a few remain into the pitlane. The Russian quickly ends up out of the top ten after the top guns put in their flying laps.

Lewis Hamilton is again flying around, this time on the softer compound. He is quickest halfway in Q2 while Rosberg and Alonso follow. Red Bull racing are a bit further behind but are still putting in their laps on the harder compound.

The final stages of Q2 are intense for Kubica and Schumacher. The Pole luckily managed to improve his time and stepped up to 8th, with Adrian Sutil just behind him in 9th. Michael Schumacher didn't improve in his final lap but gets through to Q3 by a margin of just 3 hundreths over Barrichello who just missed Q3.

Barrichello is eliminated for Q3, as well as Alguersuari, Buemi, Petrov, Kobayashi, Hulkenberg and De La Rosa.

The track is then quiet for a bit with drivers not going out in the first few minutes. By the halfway mark, most set their first laps and Vettel came out quickest. The German hasn't shown a thing so far during qualifying but appears to up his game when it matters.

Webber is third fastest, ahead of Rosberg and Hamilton. The latter made a race pitstop, confirming that he had more fuel aboard then the others during his first flying lap.

Hamilton is then the first to start his second attempt, immediately struggling oversteer in the second corner. Hamilton improves but is still 0.065 behind Vettel's first lap. Weber follows and improves on Vettel, as well as Alonso who is then in second position.

Vettel however managed to shave off another 0.25s off Webber, taking yet another pole position with Luscious Liz. Nico Rosberg put his Mercedes in 4th, Michael Schumacher is again 0.9s off the pace of his teammate.