 Vettel became the youngest driver in the history of Formula One to take pole position, with a time of 1: 37.555 in very wet conditions. He was joined on the front row of the grid by Kovalainen. Mark Webber qualified third after his final lap pushed Sébastien Bourdais into fourth position. Massa took sixth position behind Rosberg. Trulli, Fernando Alonso, Glock and Heidfeld rounded out the top ten. Kubica qualified 11th, blaming late rain in the second qualifying session for his position. Fisichella qualified 12th to give Force India its best grid position of the season. Both Räikkönen and Hamilton blamed a late entry into the second session for their poor qualifying times, which saw them eliminated in 14th and 15th positions, respectively. Hamilton originally ran on the standard wet-weather tyres, and by the time he had changed to extreme wet-weather tyres the rain had intensified. This was McLaren's only result outside the top ten in qualifying all season and the first time in Hamilton's career that he had failed to progress into the final qualifying session.
