Formula One:Pole-position king Sebastian Vettel clinched his ninth top spot of the season to edge out Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber in qualifying for tomorrow's Korean Grand Prix.
For Vettel it is the most poles in a year since Michael Schumacher in 2001, with only six drivers in Formula One history claiming more - Nigel Mansell, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Mika Hakkinen, Jacques Villeneuve and Schumacher.
It was another dominant performance from Red Bull overall, with the team locking out the front row for the fourth time this season, and the eighth for Vettel and Webber as a pairing, with the duo split by just 0.074secs on this occasion.
On the second row of the grid at the Korea International Circuit will be Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton in his McLaren.
Hamilton, 28 points adrift in the standings and desperately needing a win to stay in the hunt for the title, at the death finished half a second down on Vettel who had been nowhere in practice.
After completing his first run in Q3, there was a serious scare for the 25-year-old as he made his way into the pit entry. Taking the right-hander too quickly, Hamilton was forced to take to the grass before finally making his way back onto the asphalt and into the pit box for a fresh set of tyres.
Whether that unsettled Hamilton is unsure, but he failed to make any headway on his second row, and will now have to rely on his race pace to keep him in the hunt.
Mercedes' Nico Rosberg starts fifth ahead of Felipe Massa in his Ferrari, with Jenson Button suffering another damaging blow to his hopes of retaining his title as he will start seventh.
At the end of Q1 Button had complained over the team radio that he was struggling to get temperature into his tyres, explaining why he finished a second down on Hamilton who ended that session quickest. Renault's Robert Kubica starts eighth, with Michael Schumacher ninth for Mercedes and Williams' Rubens Barrichello 10th.
After clinching a place in the top 10 in three of the previous four races, Nico Hulkenberg failed to make it four from five after being edged out by team-mate Barrichello in the 15-minute Q2. The German will start from 11th ahead of Sauber duo Kamui Kobayashi and Nick Heidfeld, separated by just 0.068secs, with Force India's Adrian Sutil 14th.
Renault's Vitaly Petrov, whose position in the team for next season is increasingly coming under threat, qualified 15th, but will start 20th due to a five-place grid penalty. That follows his dangerous manoeuvre at the start of the Japanese Grand Prix a fortnight ago when he took Hulkenberg out of the race.
Jaime Alguersuari comfortably out-qualified Toro Rosso team-mate Sebastien Buemi, although they move up a place to 15th and 16th. For the fifth time this season, some would argue too high a figure given Force India's potential, Vitantonio Liuzzi failed to make it out of Q1, emerging from his car to complain of graining with his tyres and understeer.
To that extent, there were no surprises in the initial 20-minute session, with Lotus' Jarno Trulli the best of the rest, 1.6secs adrift of his fellow Italian Liuzzi, followed by Virgin Racing's Timo Glock.
Due to Petrov's penalty, Liuzzi, Trulli and Glock also climb a spot on the grid to 17th, 18th and 19th. Behind Petrov, Heikki Kovalainen lines up 21st ahead of Lucas di Grassi in the other Virgin.
On the final row will be the Hispania Racing duo of Sakon Yamamoto and Bruno Senna, with the Japanese congratulated by his mechanics after finishing a considerable 0.8secs clear of the Brazilian.
After claiming pole and the win in Japan a fortnight ago, Vettel was asked whether this was his sprint finish to the championship.
"I wouldn't mind," smiled Vettel. "You have to take every race as it comes. Japan was nice, but now we are in Korea so the focus is on that. What happened today was a very good achievement after being unable to get into the rhythm in practice. The important thing was not to lose focus, to remain calm, and now our job is done today, we will see tomorrow."
Webber, who leads Vettel and Alonso by 14 points in the standings, had to content himself with finishing behind Vettel again.
"I'm second on the grid which is a lot better off than other spots out there," said Webber. "Qualifying went okay for me. I went close, but it wasn't quite enough."
Notably, Webber will start on the dirty side of the track, although he tried to dismiss that, adding: "Fernando will be solid off the line, but it's not make or break for the championship."
Alonso felt third was as much as he could do as he said: "It was a nice qualifying, a smooth qualifying, but when you get into Q3 Red Bull always push more. One more spot might have been our maximum, which is good news because qualifying has not always been our strongest point, so to be so close to the Red Bulls is good news."