Patronise F1

Lewis Hamilton continued his fine form at Shanghai, overcoming a mid-session wobble to top all three parts of the qualifying session and cementing a fairly dominant pole position for the potentially title-deciding race tomorrow. But as in Fuji, if he wants to win, he'll need to hold off the marauding Ferraris behind him, along with the wildcard of Fernando Alonso's Renault, if he is to have a hope of wrapping up the championship here. As well as avoiding another choke, of course.

Things didn't look rosy for the Brit throughout the session though. In both Q2 and Q3, he was some distance off the pace after his first runs, but a switch to the softer tyres (that the team had struggled to extract pace from in practice) saw him top the times in Q2, while a mistake in the middle sector in Q3 was to blame for his initial lowly placing there.

In the end, he came out on top in the final part of qualifying, despite Kimi Raikkonen's best efforts to secure what would have been the Finn's first pole position since the French Grand Prix in late June. The Ferrari leapt to the top of the pile as the frontrunners completed their final runs in Q3, moving ahead of the early pace setter Heikki Kovalalinen, but Hamilton was right behind him and soon usurped the Finn by over three tenths of a second.

Felipe Massa will start from third place after struggling to keep pace with his team mate throughout the three part session, while Fernando Alonso, winner of the last two races, joins the Brazilian on the second row. Both of those drivers also pipped Kovalainen in the last few moments of the session, with the McLaren man failing to improve on his final run. Once again, Kovalainen is out of position in terms of playing reargunner for Hamilton.

Behind Kovalainen was Mark Webber, putting in a sterling performance once again to plonk his Red Bull higher up the timesheets than perhaps it should have been. But, as with much of Webber's career, it wasn't all good news. The joy of his success was tempered by the fact that he will drop ten places after an engine failure during the morning practice session.

Nick Heidfeld will therefore be promoted up to 6th after he turned in a half-decent qualifying effort for once. Behind him, Sebastian Vettel will start 7th, two places ahead of his team mate Sebastien Bourdais, with Jarno Trulli in 8th, the Toyota meat in a Toro Rosso sandwich. Nelson Piquet Jr just missed the cut for Q3, but will round out the top ten after Webber's demotion.

As for the third title contender, Robert Kubica's slim title hopes are now slimmer than a supermodel on a crash diet after he failed to hook up a lap in Q2 and was eliminated before the final part of qualifying for only the second time all season (the first coming in the rain-affected session in Italy). Not the best time for the Pole to be turning in such a poor performance, and he now needs a miracle just to remain mathematically in the title fight for the final race. Once again, as soon as Patty declares its support for a driver, so the driver sees his season implode. Oops.

Also bowing out in Q2 were Timo Glock's Toyota, Rubens Barrichello's Honda (nevertheless an impressive performance from the under-pressure Brazilian in a dreadful car) and Nico Rosberg's Williams-Toyota. The dizzying highs of the podium at Singapore must now feel an awfully long way away for the young German.

The first part of qualifying saw plenty of usual suspects eliminated. The Force Indias were slowest, Jenson Button wasn't much quicker and Kazuki Nakajima failed to turn some promising practice pace into qualifying form. Also eliminated at the first hurdle was David Coulthard, who complained at length of being blocked by Nick Heidfeld, and ended up having the late runs from the likes of Massa and Alonso to thank for avoiding the ignominy of ending up qualifying behind his team mate even after Webber took his penalty.

For tomorrow then, Hamilton would seem to be in the box seat. But you only have to go back seven days to see that pole position for the Brit doesn't necessarily translate into a confident race performance, and to add even more "spice" to this weekend, rain is predicted for the race tomorrow. Despite the look of the grid, there may be a few twists lying in wait for the title contenders.

Update: After deliberating for a fair few hours, the race stewards have decided to hand a three place grid penalty to Nick Heidfeld for his blocking on DC in the first session of qualifying. As is befitting a race steward penalty, this of course benefits Coulthard himself in no way at all, but it does move Heidfeld back to 9th place, promiting Vettel, Trulli and Bourdais up one spot.

* - Eliminated in second session
** - Eliminated in first session
*** - Penalised ten places for engine change
**** - Penalised three places for abusing the elderly