The McLaren team break the Mercedes record of the most amount one-two qualifying finishes, five years to the day that Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton did for McLaren in front of the Italian crowd. This time it would be Hamilton who took Pole with Jenson Button lining up next to him.
Ferrari tried to deploy a towing system to help Alonso in Q3, but it failed miserably and it was Felipe Massa who arguably gained from it. The Brazilian will start third, out-qualifying Alonso for the first time this season. Paul Di Resta was fourth fastest in Q3 but a five place grid penalty for a change of gearbox sees him drop to ninth.
The penalty for Di Resta pushes Michael Schumacher up to fourth, Sebastian Vettel into fifth, Nico Rosberg up to sixth, Kimi Raikkonen into seventh and Kamui Kobayashi will now start eighth. The last man in Q3 was the quickest in the first two sessions, Alonso, but he finished well off the pace and will start in tenth.
Q2 saw Mark Webber fall for the second time in three races before Q3 and will start 11th. Pastor Maldonado had qualified in 12th place but a ten place grid penalty for his crash in Spa means he will start in 22nd. This sees Sergio Perez start 12th, Bruno Senna start 13th and Daniel Ricciardo start 14th.
With Romain Grosjean banned for this race after last week's major crash, Jerome D'Ambrosio returned to action for the first time since Brazil last season. Back then he was driving for the Virgin team so it was no surprise to see him make it into Q2 for the first time in his career. It was a squeeze though and without Nico Hulkenberg failing to set a time, the Belgian could well have dropped out in Q1. Instead, he now starts 15th.
Jean-Eric Vergne will now start 16th with Heikki Kovalainen, the last man to fall from Q1, starting 17th. Vitaly Petrov celebrates his birthday behind his team-mate in 18th with Timo Glock 19th and Charles Pic 20th.
A little piece of history happened in Q1, Narain Karthikeyan out-qualified a team-mate for the first time since 2005, in China. The feat means the Indian driver now starts 21st courtesy of Maldonado's penalty with Pedro De La Rosa starting his 100th GP in 23rd. The big faller from Q1 was Hulkenberg when he lost all power in the car and parked it on the grass without setting a time, he will subsequently start last.
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