Lucky Button surprised to be on pole

The Brawn driver left it very late in the session to score his third pole in five races, and the sixth of his Formula 1 career.

Button left the pits with just enough time to complete his out lap, crossing the finish line to start his last run with just two seconds left.

The Briton admitted his team had got lucky.

"It could have gone very, very wrong," said Button. "We timed it quite well but I had Kubica who I thought was on an out lap and I had to let him past.

"The guys said you had four seconds less than a proper lap time to get across the line in time. I got across the line just with a couple of seconds to spare - it was more luck than judgement.

"It was the best lap of my weekend. I had been having some trouble with this guy low fuel but I got the lap on the high fuel.

"I am very happy and it is a bit of a surprise in a way, when I heard Shov's voice on the radio it felt pretty good."

Button conceded it is likely to be a very close fight for victory tomorrow, with Sebastian Vettel having finished just over a tenth behind.

"I am not sure it is an amazing advantage being on pole by half a tenth," he said. "This package is a step forward. We still need to work with it a bit more, we haven't got the maximum out of it, hope we haven't anyway, but everyone at Brackley should he happy with what we've done.

"Over the weekend we tried lots of things and were happy with the direction. I am happy with performance.

"I don't know what lap Seb is stopping on, but it will be a nice feeling to be back here. The last two races I wasn't near the press conference. It's a good position to start from tomorrow. The Ferrari was surprisingly quick in Q2 and they have KERS.

"I am excited and didn't think I would be in this position."