Vettel equals Mansell's pole record

It was one of only a few records that Sebastian Vettel hasn't taken this season and with one race remaining in 2011, the F1 champion still has the chance of taking it.

Nigel Mansell set the current record of 14 pole positions in a single season back in 1992 when the popular Brit took his first and only Formula One title for Williams.

With the final two races in Abu Dhabi and Brazil, the back-to-back champion travelled to this weekends race knowing he had to take pole position if he had hopes of beating the 19-year-old record.

Going into the final stage of qualifying, it looked unlikely, with McLaren looking very strong in practice and in the first two parts of Qualifying.

As expected Jenson Button was quick and he set a handy time of 1 minute 38.631seconds, he was then narrowly beaten by team-mate Lewis Hamilton who shaved 0.009seconds off his time and looked like he had taken pole position, only for Sebastian Vettel to once again triumph at the end with a time of 1minute 38.481seconds and take a record-equalling 14th pole position of the season.

Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber qualified in fourth position ahead of Ferrari duo Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa, whilst Mercedes pairing of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher took seventh and eighth ahead of Force India's Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta who got through to Q3 again.

The midfield battle could be interesting tomorrow with Sergio Perez (Sauber), Vitaly Petrov (Renault), Sebastien Buemi (Toro Rosso), Bruno Senna (Renault), Jaime Alguersuari (Toro Rosso), Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber) all separated by 0.366seconds.

Both Williams drivers struggled Pastor Maldonado qualified 17th ahead of his 10-place grid penalty, while Rubens Barrichello failed to set a time at all with engine problems.

In the battle of the newbies Daniel Ricciardo impressed for HRT by splitting the Virgin drivers, but as ever, Lotus came out on top with Heikki Kovalainen coming out on top over team-mate Jarno Trulli by almost a second.