This follows the Brazilian's excellent form during the earlier practice sessions this weekend, where this would be his fifth pole of the season, and the 14th in his career.

Today's result should be pivotal in order for Massa to turn the tables on his championship rival Hamilton, who committed several errors in the second round of qualifying, where he'd managed to scrape through in 10th. This was largely due to the fact that Fernando Alonso's highly competitive Renault R28 died on him halfway through Q2, suffering from fuel delivery problems and relegating him to 15th.

Kimi Raikkonen trails Hamilton by just two tenths in third, and it's clear that the world champion has not overcome a few handling problems during the past few days.

BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld line up in fourth and sixth places respectively, split by the McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen in fifth.

Toro Rosso's Sebastian Vettel, who emerged the winner at the Monza Italian Grand Prix, continued to demonstrate a strong run in seventh while team-mate Sebastien Bourdais was left towards the back of the field.

Timo Glock posts eight fastest in the Toyota TF108, while the Toyota powered Williams duo of Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima are in ninth and tenth respectively. Glock's team mate Jarno Trulli was relegated to eleventh. Not spectacular, but much better compared to previous troubles during the past few days.

Honda's Jenson Button was not able to recapture his reign in the top ten during practice as he lined up in twelfth, but was ahead of the Red Bull Renault duo of Mark Webber and David Coulthard who lost a lot of practice time prior to last night's qualifying session.

Things had also gone wrong for ING-Renault's Nelson Piquet where it counted the most. He starts in 16th after lapping around eight-tenths of a second slower in qualifying than in practice. The same went to seventeenth place Bourdais, who clearly had a hard time in his Toro Rosso Ferrari.

Rounding up the back is Rubens Barrichello in 18th, ahead of Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella in the Ferrari engined Force Indias. Fisichella had a nightmarish session, with two accidents during practice and qualifying. His car was impounded for repairs during most of the first qualifying session, only see him nose-dive his VJM01 into water barriers at turn three during his first and only flying lap!