Vettel leads all-Red Bull front row

Montreal polesitter Lewis Hamilton had to settle for third for McLaren, alongside home favourite Fernando Alonso's Ferrari.

It was Webber who held provisional pole going into the closing moments of Q3, but a big improvement from Vettel thrust the German onto the top spot for the first time since China, as he produced a lap of 1m37.587s.

Although Webber was just 0.001 seconds down at the final split, that became 0.075s by the finish line and the Australian had to settle for second.

An error on his last lap saw Hamilton unable to defend his provisional front row slot and he fell to third, just ahead of the two Ferraris, both of which had slightly messy Q3 runs.

Both Renault and Williams got both cars into Q3. Robert Kubica completed the top six, with his rookie team-mate Vitaly Petrov 10th.

In between them, world champion Jenson Button was only seventh for McLaren, just ahead of the two Williams - where a strong run from Nico Hulkenberg saw him equal last year's Valencia winner Rubens Barrichello's time and take eighth by virtue by setting his lap first.

Mercedes was the main victim of the underdogs' Q3 efforts, with the silver cars enduring an even worse qualifying session than in Montreal. Nico Rosberg could only manage 12th after a dramatic brake-locking last lap, and Michael Schumacher looked set to depart in Q1 before his final effort salvaged a Q2 spot - where he was only 15th, among his worst ever Formula 1 starts.

Force India also lost out as the likes of Williams improved. Adrian Sutil and Tonio Liuzzi will share row seven. But it was an encouraging session for Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi, who grabbed 11th and came within 0.034s of sneaking into Q3.

Schumacher's last-gasp Q1 escape meant it was Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi who ended up down with the new teams for the second event in a row. His team-mate Pedro de la Rosa was just two places ahead, with Jaime Alguersuari's Toro Rosso splitting them.

Lotus remained on top among the tail end group, but this time the gap to the rest of the field was back up to 1.3s. Jarno Trulli overturned team-mate Heikki Kovalainen's recent superiority and led the new teams - and there was a change of form at Virgin too, where Lucas di Grassi outqualified Timo Glock for the first time.

Pos  Driver         Team                   Q1        Q2        Q3
 1.  Vettel         Red Bull-Renault      1:38.324   1:38.015   1:37.587
 2.  Webber         Red Bull-Renault      1:38.549   1:38.041   1:37.662
 3.  Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes      1:38.697   1:38.158   1:37.969
 4.  Alonso         Ferrari               1:38.472   1:38.179   1:38.075
 5.  Massa          Ferrari               1:38.657   1:38.046   1:38.127
 6.  Kubica         Renault               1:38.132   1:38.062   1:38.137
 7.  Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1:38.360   1:38.399   1:38.210
 8.  Hulkenberg     Williams-Cosworth     1:38.843   1:38.523   1:38.428
 9.  Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth     1:38.449   1:38.326   1:38.428
10.  Petrov         Renault               1:39.004   1:38.552   1:38.523
11.  Buemi          Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1:39.096   1:38.586
12.  Rosberg        Mercedes              1:38.752   1:38.627
13.  Sutil          Force India-Mercedes  1:39.021   1:38.851
14.  Liuzzi         Force India-Mercedes  1:38.969   1:38.884
15.  Schumacher     Mercedes              1:38.994   1:39.234
16.  de la Rosa     Sauber-Ferrari        1:39.003   1:39.264
17.  Alguersuari    Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1:39.128   1:39.458
18.  Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari        1:39.343
19.  Trulli         Lotus-Cosworth        1:40.658
20.  Kovalainen     Lotus-Cosworth        1:40.882
21.  di Grassi      Virgin-Cosworth       1:42.086
22.  Glock          Virgin-Cosworth       1:42.140
23.  Chandhok       HRT-Cosworth          1:42.600
24.  Senna          HRT-Cosworth          1:42.851

All Timing Unofficial