Hang ’em high in Shanghai: Lewis Hamilton grabbed his seventh pole of the season for Sunday’s penultimate round in this year’s world championship, the Chinese Grand Prix. Sharing the front row with the British McLaren driver will be outgoing champion Kimi Raikkonen. His Ferrari teammate and title challenger Felipe Massa shares the second row with his spiritual-championship saviour Fernando Alonso, who continues his petulance and prickly bitterness towards the team he drove for last year.

It was in this race from pole position last year that Lewis Hamilton’s quest to become the first rookie and youngest world champion slipped off-track in the wet. Rain is again expected, time will tell if it will shower him with an historic title or drown him in another Shanghai surprise and disappointment.

Hamilton takes his seventh pole of the season.
Kimi second and Felipe Massa settles for third.
Fernando Alonso on the second row with P4.
Heidfeld penalized three grid positions for blocking DC.

Pos  Driver        Team                     Q1         Q2         Q3     
1.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  1:35.566   1:34.947   1:36.303
2.  Raikkonen     Ferrari             (B)  1:35.983   1:35.355   1:36.645
3.  Massa         Ferrari             (B)  1:35.971   1:35.135   1:36.889
4.  Alonso        Renault             (B)  1:35.769   1:35.461   1:36.927
5.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  1:35.623   1:35.216   1:36.930
6.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault    (B)  1:36.238   1:35.686   1:37.083
7.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber          (B)  1:36.224   1:35.403   1:37.201
8.  Vettel        Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  1:35.752   1:35.386   1:37.685
9.  Trulli        Toyota              (B)  1:36.104   1:35.715   1:37.934
10.  Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  1:36.239   1:35.478   1:38.885
11.  Piquet        Renault             (B)  1:36.029   1:35.722
12.  Kubica        BMW Sauber          (B)  1:36.503   1:35.814
13.  Glock         Toyota              (B)  1:36.210   1:35.937
14.  Barrichello   Honda               (B)  1:36.640   1:36.079
15.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota     (B)  1:36.434   1:36.210
16.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault    (B)  1:36.731
17.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota     (B)  1:36.863
18.  Button        Honda               (B)  1:37.053
19.  Sutil         Force India-Ferrari (B)  1:37.730
20.  Fisichella    Force India-Ferrari (B)  1:37.739