Sebastian Vettel stormed the qualifying session, by clocking the fastest timings throughout the three sessions, to take his sixth pole position of the season for the 100th grand prix of his career. He was followed by McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton and team mate Mark Webber.

After dominating all the practice sessions, Sebastian Vettel repeated the same in the qualifying. He was the only driver under 1 minute and 37 seconds in the first qualifying session and later clocked a timing within the 1 minute 35 second bracket in the second and third sessions. Team mate Mark Webber made it to a third behind McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton.

Lewis Hamilton was consistently the second fastest in all three sessions, and was only one tenth slower than Vettel in the final session of qualifying. Team mate Jenson Button had a tough day as he had to pull out of the second session due to a power failure in the car. The 2009 world champion will start down in 12th in tomorrow's race.

Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen will take the fourth spot on the grid. He did not start out to well as he was 13th in the first session, and barely managed a 10th in the second one but made it up to a fourth on the grid. Team mate Romain Grosjean managed being the fourth quickest in all three sessions but has been given a grid penalty for a gearbox change which drops him down five places to start ninth in the race.

Seven time world champion Michael Schumacher starts in fifth position and has had one of the best qualifying sessions after a long time to qualify twelve places ahead of his team mate Nico Rosberg who starts the race seventeenth on the grid.

Ferrari driver Felipe Massa has managed qualifying sixth, while it did not go too well for championship title contender and team mate Fernando Alonso who starts eighth on grid, with the championship hanging by a thread. Alonso was the ninth fastest in the final session of qualifying but starts in eigth as a result of penalty. It is only the second time in the season when Massa has outperformed his team-mate in qualifying.

Sahara Force India driver Nico Hulkenberg qualifies to seventh position on the grid splitting both the Ferrari’s, while team mate Paul Di Resta will start the race in thirteenth behind McLaren driver Jenson Button.
William’s driver Pastor Maldonado starts the race in tenth place followed by team mate Bruno Senna in eleventh. Torro Rosso driver Jean-Eric Vergne starts the race in fourteenth with team mate Daniel Ricciardo in sixteenth.

Sauber had a disappointing performance with Sergio Perez who starts fifteenth followed by team mate Kamui Kobayashi in sixteenth. Marussia drivers Timo Glock and Charles Pic will start nineteenth and twentieth respectively. They are followed by Caterham team drivers Vitaly Petrov and Heikki Kovaleinen at P 21 and P22.  HRT driver Pedro de la Rosa starts 23rd ahead of team mate and Indian driver Narain Karthikeyan who starts the race in last position.