page_title: 2010 Japanese Grand Prix
section_title: Qualifying
hierarchical_section_title: 2010 Japanese Grand Prix / Report / Qualifying
caption_attribution_description: Formula One 2010 Rd.16 Japanese GP: FIA's track inspection for the Saturday qualify session. The safety car at the 'S' of the circuit.
context_page_description: The 2010 Japanese Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 10 October 2010 at the Suzuka Circuit, in Suzuka, Mie, Japan. It was held as the sixteenth round of the 2010 Formula One season. Contested over 53 laps, the race was won by Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel after starting from pole position. Mark Webber finished second in the second Red Bull car, and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso completed the podium, in third place.
  As a consequence of the race, Webber extended his lead in the World Drivers' Championship – despite finishing behind Vettel – to fourteen points over Alonso, who was classified ahead of Vettel in the standings on a tie-break situation as he had recorded four race victories to Vettel's three. The McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton, who finished fifth, and Jenson Button, who finished fourth, fell further behind, dropping to 28 points and 31 points behind Webber with three races left in the season. In the World Constructors' Championship, Red Bull's one-two finish allowed them to extend the championship lead over McLaren to 45 points, with Ferrari a further 47 points behind in third position.
context_section_description: Qualifying was postponed until Sunday morning in the face of worsening conditions that were deemed unsafe for the drivers to attempt flying laps. This also occurred in 2004 after the encroaching typhoon Ma-on threatened the circuit. The rescheduled session was due to finish just four hours before the race began. Although the weather forecast predicted clear conditions for the race, Article 36.2 of the sporting regulations sets out a system in the event of qualifying being abandoned altogether (such as in the case of further heavy rain), with the grid being decided on a priority system. Cars that attempt to set flying laps are to be given first priority, followed by cars that do not leave the pit lane and cars that do not leave their pit garage. In the event that several cars fall into one or more of these categories, their grid position is decided by numerical order.
  The wet weather that had hampered Saturday running had cleared overnight and the circuit was largely dry for qualifying, though a few damp patches could be found off the racing line. Although the circuit was declared dry, whatever rubber had been laid down by the drivers during free practice and support races had long since been washed away, leaving the circuit in a virgin state. As the damp patches dried out and the circuit began to rubber in, lap times quickly began to fall, spearheaded by Vettel and Mark Webber, as per the predictions of Red Bull dominance. By the end of the first period, Lotus, Virgin and Hispania Racing had each locked out one of the final three rows of the grid, with Jarno Trulli out-qualifying team-mate Heikki Kovalainen to lead the six new cars. Sébastien Buemi took away the unenviable title of the only regular runner to be eliminated in the first period. Buemi later claimed that he had been held up by one of the Hispanias.
  Buemi's Toro Rosso team-mate Jaime Alguersuari soon joined the Swiss driver on the sidelines and the young Catalan failed to make an impression during the second session, finishing sixteenth between the Force Indias of Adrian Sutil and Vitantonio Liuzzi as Force India experienced yet another disappointing qualifying session. The twin BMW Saubers of Kamui Kobayashi and Nick Heidfeld were also eliminated, with Heidfeld demoted to eleventh after a last-minute lap from Michael Schumacher bumped him down into the elimination zone. Felipe Massa qualified twelfth ahead of Renault's Vitaly Petrov, after a slow middle sector on his final run spoiled a lap time that would have otherwise been fast enough to advance to the final session.
  After Fernando Alonso broke Red Bull's stranglehold on pole position in Monza and Singapore, the Austrian team returned to the front row of the grid, with Vettel leading Webber to pole position, half a second quicker than Lewis Hamilton, who had only completed a handful of laps over the weekend after his heavy accident in the first practice session that sidelined him for most of the second and the monsoonal conditions in the third. Hamilton went into the qualifying hour knowing that he was to take a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change after the team discovered damage from his retirement in Singapore. Hamilton's grid drop promoted Renault's Robert Kubica up into third place, separating the Red Bull drivers from their title rivals. Alonso in the sole remaining Ferrari duelled with Jenson Button, who once again adopted an unorthodox approach of setting his fastest lap time on the harder compound tyres. Alonso joined the grid fourth behind Kubica, with Button fifth. Nico Rosberg once again out-qualified Schumacher with sixth, followed closely by Rubens Barrichello. Hamilton's penalty meant that he is sandwiched by the Williams drivers, though the ninth-placed Nico Hülkenberg claimed he had been held up at the chicane by Hamilton and complained to the stewards. This protest was later thrown out, preserving Hamilton's eighth place.
caption: The safety car was used to determine that track conditions were too wet to hold qualifying on Saturday afternoon; the session was rescheduled for Sunday morning.
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