It may be a straight battle between Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso to be crowned World Champion in tomorrow's final race, but McLaren have set out to make a statement to end the season on a high. It is a McLaren one-two with Lewis Hamilton looking to end his time at the constructor with two consecutive race wins, arguably two reasons why Hamilton is making such a bad decision.
Even Mark Webber is looking to make the headlines by starting tomorrow's race in third. But it might not be a surprise if we see Webber have a slightly slow get away, allowing Vettel to overtake him from the start as the Championship leader starts fourth.
Felipe Massa will start his home grand prix fifth. Pastor Maldonado was due to start alongside him in sixth but he has been given a ten place penalty for failing to stop on the weighbridge and will now start 16th. This means that Nico Hulkenberg will now start alongside Massa with Alonso also being pushed up into seventh.
Kimi Raikkonen and Nico Rosberg were the final two to partake in Q3 and Paul Di Resta will now make up the top ten. Vettel was the fastest in Q2 as the earlier rain had began to ease and fade away and Bruno Senna just missed out on Q3 in his home grand prix and will now start 11th.
Sergio Perez's final qualifying session in a Sauber saw him manage 13th but has also had that promotion. Any hopes of a magical swansong for Michael Schumacher ended when he failed to make it out of Q2 with Kamui Kobayashi completing the Sauber sandwich for Schumacher.
Daniel Ricciardo is the final beneficiary of Maldonado's penalty in a rare session that saw both Toro Rosso cars make it out of Q3. Jean Eric-Vergne will begin the race in 17th as the demotion has forced a Toro Rosso sandwich.
As the rain fell in Q1, the cars looked like they were on ice to begin with due to them being on the hard tyres, not the intermediates or even the wets. Hamilton would emerge from the session as the fastest. Romain Grosjean failed to progress out of Q1 for the first time in his career, but it was in a slightly controversial way. The Lotus was going to overtake Pedro De La Rosa on the inside as they headed toward the finish straight. But De La Rosa squeezed Grosjean into the wall, causing the Lotus to suffer front wing damage which eventually fell off later in the lap. This cost him valuable time in the pits and was unable to post a good enough time.
Vitaly Petrov managed to out-qualify Heikki Kovalainen in the final Caterham battle of the season. The Finn hinted that could be his last as he is not sure whether he'll still have a place within Formula One next season. Timo Glock will begin the race 21st with Charles Pic behind in the final Marussia battle of the season. For only the third time this season, Narain Karthikeyan managed to out-qualify De La Rosa at the back of the grid.
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