Hamilton claims Fuji pole
Hamilton was delighted to forge ahead of his team-mate
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Saturday, 29, Sep 2007 10:15
Lewis Hamilton snatched pole position away from Fernando Alonso in the dying moments of qualifying at the Japanese grand prix as the McLaren pair fight for the world championship.
The Fuji track was engulfed by rainy and misty conditions and the weather almost caused the qualifying session to be postponed but it cleared enough for the cars to proceed using wet tyres.
Alonso looked to have the upper hand in the final part of qualifying, setting the early pace and then improving on that time on his final run.
However, Hamilton found a clear piece of track to record a time of 1min 25.368secs, seven hundredths of a second quicker than his rival.
Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen will start from third place while Felipe Massa fared worst of the four championship contenders, qualifying in fourth place.
Raikkonen had looked on course to beat Alonso's time with his final qualifying run but lost time in the final sector. His misery was compounded when Hamilton leapfrogged everyone to claim pole position, pushing the Finn back to the second row of the grid.
Nick Heidfeld qualified fifth for BMW while Williams driver Nico Rosberg came sixth, but he will start in 16th place after being penalised ten grid slots for changing his engine.
That promoted Jenson Button into the sixth grid slot for Sunday's race after the Honda driver completed his best qualifying session of the year.
Button was seventh on the day and benefited from the wet conditions which masked the lack of power from the Honda engine as the Briton skilfully negotiated the tricky track.
It was a less successful day for the other Britons. David Coulthard qualified 12th for Red Bull while Anthony Davidson will start in 19th place for Super Aguri.