It was a close one this time on qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix but still Vettel, the man who has dominated almost every qualifying session so far this season, managed to get ahead of everyone. This time around Jenson Button, who dominated practice sessions was denied pole position by a 0.009s margin.

It almost looked as Red Bull was going to beaten in Suzuka, for the first time this season. IT all started well for the McLaren drivers. Having dominated all practices and with Hamilton dominating Q2 and the first laps of Q3, everything seemed to be heading their way.

Having failed to improve his fastest time on his second run in Q3, Hamilton saw his time of 1m30.617s beaten by Vettel's 1m30.466s and it was now up to his team mate to try and beat the reigning world champion. But he failed by an extremely narrow difference.

Hamilton will start tomorrow’s race in the second row, being joined by Felipe Massa from Ferrari, who beat his Spaniard team-mate by 0.062 seconds. Alonso failed on his first Q3 shot when he went off the road at Spoon.

Webber wasn’t able to finish better than sixth in the other Red Bull.

Several drivers opted not to run in Q3 in order to save tyres. One of them was Michael Schumacher who finished 7^th. His team mate didn’t run at all in qualifying because of an hydraulic issue and will start tomorrow’s race in 23^rd.

Kamui Kobayashi had a shining performance in his home Grand Prix has he was the fastest in Q1 and made it to Q2, opting not to run in Q3 to save an extra set of tyres.

Starting in eighth and ninth will be Bruno Senna and Vitaly Petrov, overcoming the problems the team faced in Singapore.

The Force Indias failed to make it to Q3 and will be sharing row six, ahead of Rubens Barrichello and Pastor Maldonado.

Although Toro Rosso seemed to be a challenger to get into Q3 after the first two runs but in Q2 the team opted to make a single attempt on track and saw both cars finish in the eighth row of the grid.

A hydraulic problem stroke the Sauber of Sergio Pérez who couldn’t run in Q2 and will start Sunday’s race in 17^th.