Vettel Poles in Valencia

Sebastian Vettel has claimed pole position for Sunday's European Grand Prix at the culmination of a showdown that, prior to the World Champion's production of a stunning lap of 1:38.086, was destined to be recalled as one of the most tightly-fought qualifying hours in F1's long history.

With just two-tenths of a second covering the entry-times of those ten drivers fractionally quick enough to reach Q3, the Valencia shootout frizzled with intensity and excitement before Vettel stunned the field by unveiling the full capabilities of the upgraded RB8 to claim pole position by almost half a second.

With the field so closely packed until Vettel's astonishing demonstration of superiority, it was unsurprising to hear his team boss, Christian Horner, describe his effort as his driver's "lap of the year". The German has claimed pole position in 33 of the 89 events he has competed in F1, but rarely can he have produced such a spectacular effort. Or indeed, given that Valencia takes such a dim view of the value of overtaking and he only attempted a single flying lap in Q3, a more important one.

Incredibly, Vettel will start the race almost twenty places ahead of team-mate Mark Webber after the luckless Australian suffered the sort of teething problems that are seemingly inevitable when so many upgrades are bolted on to such finely-tuned machinery - a hydraulic leak causing his DRS wing to malfunction in Q1. Vettel himself had apparently struggled to get to grips with his 'new' charger - differing to the RB8 seen in Montreal just two weeks ago, according to some paddock insiders, by as much as 70% - before delivering, with the unmistakable stamp of genuine class, a lap of brilliance when it mattered most.

Cue the sound of jaws dropping up and down the paddock as the field were suddenly made to realise that they had been merely flattering to deceive all weekend.

Not that such a barb could ever apply to Hamilton. Like Vettel, the 2008 World Champion had seemingly been out of sorts prior to Q3 and in danger of qualifying behind team-mate Jenson Button. But the cream, it seems, always rises to the top and while Hamilton was able to wrestle a 1:38.410 out of his MP4-27, Button had to settle for a modest ninth, sandwiched between the Force Indias of Nico Hulkenberg and Paul di Resta.

"All the way through Qualifying the pace was very good; even in Q3 with an old set of tyres I was still only two tenths off of Nico [Rosberg], who was on new tyres," Button recounted. "And then we put on a new set at the end, came out of the pits and turned into turn one and I had no front grip.

"I don't know why that is, but something I've definitely got to find out about because I don't think the circuit changed that much between runs."

With Fernando Alonso eliminated from Q2 along with Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa, both Vettel and Hamilton will look at Sunday's race as the perfect opportunity to make something of a breakaway in the World Championship.

Alonso, though, naturally won't be giving up on the weekend lightly, telling Sky Sports News: "Not reaching Q3 was a little bit sad but it was the way it was for us today and unfortunately we were not fast enough. But the race is tomorrow and hopefully we can score some good points even starting in 11th. We will see how the positions are at the very end."

Starting directly behind the table-topping pair will be the Williams of Pastor Maldonado. The South American is a curious fellow. Faultless and brilliant in victory in Barcelona last month, he had since reverted to the bad old days of his maiden season and troubled the stewards more than the scorers in both Monaco and Montreal. Here in Valencia, however, he was back to his belligerent best, silencing Mr Hyde with the return of Dr Jekyll and capping a remarkable series of qualifying results which has seen him line up 21st, 1st, 23rd, 22nd and 3rd on the grid since April. If only the F1 season was only run in Spain, Pastor would surely be World Champion. Or at least vaguely consistent.

Intriguingly, Hamilton identified Lotus as the "team to watch out for on Sunday", and although the Enstone outfit are yet to fully translate their potential into genuine performance, both Romain Grosjean - out-qualifying his illustrious team-mate for a sixth time in eight races - and Kimi Raikkonen are handily placed fourth and fifth on the grid.

Mercedes' Nico Rosberg will start in sixth, just ahead of the Sauber of Kamui Kobayashi, but the real disappointment - at least as far as the local crowd were concerned - was the regression of Ferrari even with Alonso behind the wheel. Having clawed their way back to competitiveness, neither the Spaniard nor team-mate Massa have spent any time amongst the frontrunners this weekend, but their actual margin of elimination scarcely amounted to a blink with both Ferraris, along with Schumacher, denied access to the Q3 shootout despite being less than three-tenths off the Q2 summit.