Vettel storms to Chinese GP pole

But while one Red Bull sat on top of the qualifying results with a lap 0.7 seconds quicker than the McLarens, the other will start the race in 18th after a disaster for Mark Webber.

His car was repaired from its morning problems in time to join the session, but appeared to be running without KERS and was kept on the harder tyres at the end of Q1 as everyone else near the cut-off went for softs. As Michael Schumacher and Pastor Maldonado made late jumps up the order, Webber found himself 18th and eliminated.

Jenson Button emerged as Vettel's closest rival, but even the Briton was 0.7s adrift of pole as he beat his McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton to the outside front row position by 0.042s.

Nico Rosberg gave Mercedes its best result of the year so far with fourth place, only 0.2s down on the McLarens. He comfortable beat the Ferraris, which share row three, with Fernando Alonso ahead of Felipe Massa.

The upper midfield pack was shuffled by a late red flag in Q2, caused by Vitaly Petrov's Renault grinding to a halt on track at Turn 6.

That happened with two minutes left on the Q2 clock, at which point both Toro Rossos and both Force Indias were inside the top 10, while the Saubers, Williams, Mercedes and Petrov's team-mate Nick Heidfeld were not.

In the scramble that followed after the green, both STR drivers and Paul di Resta (Force India) hung on to their Q3 places, while Rosberg was the only man to move from outside the cut-off into the top 10, at the expense of Force India's Adrian Sutil.

Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi went on to claim the fourth row positions ahead of di Resta. Forced to sit out Q3, Petrov was left 10th.

A mistake at the hairpin left Michael Schumacher's Mercedes 14th behind Sutil and the Saubers. Heidfeld could not do better than 16th, placing him between the two Williams.

Webber's exit was the only surprise of Q1, which also saw the departure of the Lotus, Virgin and Hispania cars. Jerome D'Ambrosio outqualified Virgin team-mate Timo Glock for the first time, and both Hispanias were comfortably within the 107 per cent margin.

Pos  Driver                Team                 Time           Gap   
 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m33.706s
 2.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m34.421s  + 0.715
 3.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m34.463s  + 0.757
 4.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m34.670s  + 0.964
 5.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m35.119s  + 1.413
 6.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m35.145s  + 1.439
 7.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m36.158s  + 2.452
 8.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m36.190s  + 2.484
 9.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m36.203s  + 2.497
10.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault              No time
Q3 cut-off time: 1m35.858s                                   Gap **
11.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes 1m35.874s  + 1.388
12.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m36.053s  + 1.567
13.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m36.236s  + 1.750
14.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             1m36.457s  + 1.971
15.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth    1m36.465s  + 1.979
16.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault              1m36.611s  + 2.125
17.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth    1m36.956s  + 2.470
Q3 cut-off time: 1m36.147s                                    Gap *
18. Mark Webber            Red Bull-Renault     1m36.468s  + 1.196
19. Heikki Kovalainen      Lotus-Renault        1m37.894s  + 2.622
20. Jarno Trulli           Lotus-Renault        1m38.318s  + 3.046
21. Jerome D'Ambrosio      Virgin-Cosworth      1m39.119s  + 3.847
22. Timo Glock             Virgin-Cosworth      1m39.708s  + 4.436
23. Tonio Liuzzi           HRT-Cosworth         1m40.212s  + 4.940
24. Narain Karthikeyan     HRT-Cosworth         1m40.445s  + 5.173

107% time: 1m41.941s