Lewis Hamilton, who leads the standings by a margin of four points over his McLaren-Mercedes teammate Fernando Alonso, qualified second with a time of 1:12.082.

The final two title contenders of Kimi Räikkönen and Alonso will start third and fourth, respectively.

Fifth was a good effort from Mark Webber who put his Red Bull ahead of Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica in their BMW Saubers, Jarno Trulli’s Toyota, the Red Bull of David Coulthard and Nico Rosberg’s Williams-Toyota.

"It is a fantastic feeling to be back in Brazil in front of my own people and to take pole position is fantastic."

Hamilton was delighted as well. He might not be on pole but he was two places ahead of his major championship rival Alonso.

"It was very close," he said. "I really enjoyed the qualifying session. We seem to have a very good pace and the team did a good job getting us in a good space. I lost a bit of time in the last corner. I did not want to lose what I had up to that but I lost a tenth. It was close to a perfect lap and I am very very happy. I am just buzzing really. I am excited. I feel very relaxed. I love the circuit. The food is great. The fans are extremely enthusiastic. I have seen quite a few British flags out of there and I am happy to see I have some support."

A disappointed Alonso said, "Obviously I would have liked to be on the front row, but it was not to be. We made some changes to the car for qualifying but unfortunately they didn’t work as well as we thought they would and as a result I was not totally confident with the car. However as we have seen in China a lot of things can take place during a long race, so we will have to wait and see what happens tomorrow."

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