Hamilton's 1m24.922s lap in Q3 put him 0.7 seconds clear of his rivals at first, and proved unbeatable.

Romain Grosjean took a spectacular third for Lotus on his F1 return, while Michael Schumacher achieved his best qualifying result for Mercedes in fourth, and the Red Bulls had to settle for row three, with Mark Webber outqualifying Vettel.

Further back, Ferrari's fears of an awful start to the campaign came true as neither of its cars reached the top 10, and Kimi Raikkonen's F1 comeback got off to a surprisingly bad start as he was eliminated in Q1.

Hamilton looked assured of pole after his first Q3 run, and although his rivals closed in, none could match his time.

Instead they fought over second place, which changed hands in quick succession in the closing moments as Webber - who chose to do just one Q3 run - Schumacher, Grosjean and finally Button took turns to close in on Hamilton.

Vettel never looked like being a pole contender and his sixth place was his worst qualifying result since he took the same position at Monza in 2010.

Mercedes had appeared like a pole threat as it led the way in Q2, but Schumacher and team-mate Nico Rosberg had to be content with fourth and seventh.

Neither Ferrari got beyond Q2. Fernando Alonso spun into the Turn 1 gravel after his first run in the middle segment, causing a brief red flag. Fifth at the time, he could only furiously watch as others pushed him down to 12th.

But that was still better than Felipe Massa could manage. The Brazilian was a second off his team-mate in both Q1 (which he only just squeezed out of) and Q2, despite having more runs than the sidelined Alonso. Massa ended up 16th.

Raikkonen's disastrous first qualifying session back in F1 was the final big story of the afternoon. The Finn made a mistake on his last Q1 run then backed off thinking he had time for another flying lap, only to run out of seconds and strand his Lotus in 18th.

At the tail end of the Q3 field, Pastor Maldonado gave Williams huge encouragement after its tough 2011 season with eighth place, and Nico Hulkenberg claimed ninth for Force India in his first race back after a year as reserve.

Daniel Ricciardo made sure that both F1's Australians will start from the top 10 as he got his Toro Rosso into the pole shoot-out, although he did not complete a flying lap in Q3. Jean-Eric Vergne only just missed joining his team-mate in Q3, lapping a tenth slower as he secured 11th for his maiden grand prix start.

Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi set a surprise fastest time in Q1, but could not replicate that performance and qualified only 13th. Team-mate Sergio Perez lines up 17th after failing to set a Q2 time due to gearbox problems.

Bruno Senna (Williams) and Paul di Resta (Force India) were outperformed by their Q3-bound team-mates and were only 14th and 15th.

The tail of the field looked much like 2011. Caterham was some way off Q2 pace but clearly ahead of Marussia, while the HRTs failed to make the 107 per cent cut-off time, with Narain Karthikeyan also blocking Alonso along the way.

Pos  Driver                Team                  Time          Gap   
 1.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes      1m24.922s
 2.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m25.074s  + 0.152
 3.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault         1m25.302s  + 0.380
 4.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes              1m25.336s  + 0.414
 5.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault      1m25.651s  + 0.729
 6.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m25.668s  + 0.746
 7.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m25.686s  + 0.764
 8.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault      1m25.908s  + 0.986
 9.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes  1m26.451s  + 1.529
10.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    No time
Q2 cut-off time: 1m26.319s                                   Gap **
11.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m26.429s  + 0.960
12.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m26.4942  + 1.025
13.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari        1m26.590s  + 1.121
14.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault      1m26.663s  + 1.194
15.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes  1m27.086s  + 1.617
16.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari               1m27.497s  + 2.028
17.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari        No time
Q1 cut-off time: 1m27.633s                                    Gap *
18.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault         1m27.758s  + 1.576
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault      1m28.679s  + 2.497
20.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault      1m29.018s  + 2.836
21.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth     1m30.923s  + 4.741
22.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth     1m31.670s  + 5.488
23.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth          1m33.495s  + 7.313
24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth          1m33.643s  + 7.461

107% time: 1m32.214s

* Gap to quickest in Q1

** Gap to quickest in Q2

Autosport.com