Sebastian Vettel may have been on the ragged edge but the German still succeeded in claiming his 10th pole position of the season in Italy.
The defending World Champion crossed the line with a 1:22.275 to beat Lewis Hamilton by 0.450s. Hamilton's final lap in Q3 had been compromised when he made a mistake at the second chicane. Jenson Button could have got even closer but chose to abort his final run
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso claimed fourth place ahead of Mark Webber, Felipe Massa and Vitaly Petrov
Qualifying 1
The sun was shining down on the royal park in Monza with the ambient temperature a balmy 29C and the track at a tyre friendly 44C.
The FIA had introduced a ruling on Saturday morning that teams could face a penalty if they went beyond the safety guidelines issued by Pirelli in respect to camber angle and tyre pressures.
Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari set the first meaningful P1 time, a 1:26.610 which was then smashed by Jenson Button who reduced it to 1:24.872, Vettel slotted into P2 and then Alonso took P2. Lewis Hamilton reduced P1 to 1:24.476 before Vettel came round for a second time and took it down to 1:24.002.
Jenson Button was also running a series of laps but had to settle for P2 next time round, before Lewis Hamilton regained P1 with a 1:23.976.
With eleven minutes of the session left the yellow flags were out at Parabolica after Maldonado's Williams ran wide onto the grass (releasing his DRS too early for the straight) and slewed back across the track removing its front wing against the Armco. Luckily he was in the right position to return straight to the pits.
Mark Webber left it late to set a time, but with seven and a half minutes of the session remaining he put his Red Bull safely into the top 10. While the mid-grid tyres had started on the medium compound, the Prime, it was now time to switch to the soft Option tyre.
With four minutes of the session left to run, Pastor Maldonado had yet to set a time but had been repaired and dispatched back onto the track. The new teams occupied the six places above Maldonado and the danger zone was; 16.Perez, 17.Senna, 18.Trulli, 19.Kovalainen 20.Glock.
Perez then took P10, Maldonado posted a heroic P12 pushing Bruno Senna into P18. Senna then grabbed P15 demoting Kobayashi to P18 with Sebastien Buemi now in P.17. The scramble continued. Kobayashi jumped to P16 and then on the next lap P11.
All this left Rubens Barrichello in P18 and at the very last moment Rubens crossed the line to take P14 and Jaime Alguersuari was left stranded there. So out went: 18.Alguersuari, 19.Trulli, 20.Kovalainen, 21.Glock, 22.D'Ambrosio, 23.Liuzzi, 24.Ricciardo.
Qualifying 2
Pastor Maldonado set the first P1 time of the session with a 1:26.716, Bruno Senna took two seconds off that with a 1:24.715 and then Jenson Button took another whole second off that with a 1:23.422.
First time round Sebastian Vettel was P1 with a 1:23.105 and a lap later he'd reduced that to 1:22.914. Behind him Mark Webber slipped into P2, and then Rosberg (who was putting in the fastest first sector of anybody) took P2, before Jenson Button sidled back into P2.
At this stage, after the initial runs, Lewis Hamilton was just P7, but he had only used the medium compound tyre. It was too much of a gamble to try and make them last through the session so with five minutes to go he came in for a set of softs and set the P3 time.
In the last five minutes the danger positions were: 17.Perez, 16.Kobayashi, 15.DiResta, 14.Maldonado, 13.Barrichello, 12.Buemi, 11.Sutil, 10.Senna, 9.Petrov, 8.Hamilton, 7.Massa.
Paul DiResta jumped up to P10 a position he kept doggedly until beyond the chequered flag. Maldonado, Perez, Sutil, Kobayashi, Senna and Barrichello all improved their positions or times, but none could break into the top ten. Sutil came closest. Finally, after the flag had dropped, Bruno Senna claimed P10 pushing Paul DiResta out of Q3 as he toured back to the pits.
Out went: 11.DiResta, 12.Sutil, 13.Barrichello, 14.Maldonado, 15.Perez, 16.Buemi, 17.Kobayashi
Qualifying 3
The Ferraris came out of the pits together as soon as the lights went green. They had experimented with towing each down Monza's long straight in Practice 3 to give themselves an added advantage. They tried it on their opening tours with Massa crossing the line to set provisional pole with a 1:23.252 followed by the towed Alonso at 1:22.999.
Their time at the top lasted seconds because Jenson Button took provisional pole with a 1:22.777 and seconds later he was replaced by Sebastian Vettel with a 1:22.613. Lewis Hamilton had to settle for P2.
Mark Webber stayed in the pit for the early part of Q3. He had opted to go for one three-lap run because of an intermittent KERS fault. Vettel's plan had been to go for a two-lap run, but on the second of these he ran wide at Lesmo 2 and then put in a powerslide through the Ascari chicane. He wanted to return to the pits, but because of excessive KERS temperature which he had to dissipate over the following lap, he had to stay out.
Nico Rosberg was ploughing round, grinding out times on the medium tyre unlike all the other front-runners. Team-mate Michael Schumacher left it late for his run on softs, while Bruno Senna remained in his garage for all of Q3.
When Webber did get on track he could only manage P5. Next time round he was able to slot into P4, but Alonso got past him in the closing stages of the session.
The big battle was with the top three, the two Mclarens versus the Red Bull at the circuit where Christian Horner's team had never even started on the front row. Despite his powerslide hiccup Sebastian Vettel wound himself up for one final attempt, behind the two McLarens.
Jenson Button looked to be on a lap quicker than the P1 time, but behind him Lewis Hamilton locked a tyre into the second chicane and his chance to improve was gone. Though Button looked on course for beating his team-mate at least, he didn't have enough to take P1 and instead of finishing his lap, the team brought him back into the pits to save one lap of tyre wear. Hamilton followed him in.
Vettel swept across the line and reduced P1 by another 0.35 of a second to 1:22.275 and took his first Monza pole and his 10th pole position of the season ahead of Hamilton and Button.
Fernando Alonso was happy with P4 ahead of Mark Webber in P5, Felipe Massa in P6 and Petrov in P7. Michael Schumacher in P8 was considerably faster than Nico Rosberg in P9 but will have to stop for tyres a lot earlier as he is on the softs and Rosberg is on the medium tyre.
It had been another great qualifying day for Red Bull, but with the ability to deploy the DRS for all of Monza's long straights, the real race performance of the cars was quite tricky to gauge. With no prospect of rain tomorrow, it will be a true test of their new Monza abilities.
FH
Times
01. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m22.275
02. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m22.725 + 0.450
03. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m22.777 + 0.502
04. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m22.841 + 0.566
05. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m22.972 + 0.697
06. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m23.188 + 0.913
07. Vitaly Petrov Renault 1m23.530 + 1.255
08. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m23.777 + 1.502
09. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m24.477 + 2.202
10. Bruno Senna Renault No time
11. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m24.163 + 1.249
12. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m24.209 + 1.295
13. Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1m24.648 + 1.734
14. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 1m24.726 + 1.812
15. Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1m24.845 + 1.931
16. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m24.932 + 2.018
17. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m25.065 + 2.151
18. Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m25.334 + 1.358
19. Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault 1m26.647 + 2.671
20. Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 1m27.184 + 3.208
21. Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1m27.591 + 3.615
22. Jerome D'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 1m27.609 + 3.633
23. Daniel Ricciardo HRT-Cosworth 1m28.054 + 4.078
24. Tonio Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 1m28.231 + 4.255
