Formula One:Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel showed he still has the stomach for a championship fight by claiming pole position for Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix. In an incident-packed session that saw three red flags and two drivers taken to hospital, Vettel held his nerve to post a time of one minute 32.160 seconds and keep his slim title hopes alive.
Jarno Trulli was second in his Toyota and Lewis Hamilton will start an impressive third for McLaren but championship leader Jenson Button could only manage seventh on the grid, while main challenger and Brawn GP team-mate Rubens Barrichello will start fifth.
Vettel trails Button by 25 points with a maximum of 30 left on offer, but the German enhanced his chances of making the title a three-way battle as the season draws to a close after leading all three qualifying sessions.
Timo Glock and Jamie Alguersuari had already brought out two red flags due to heavy accidents in the previous two runs and, when Heikki Kovalainen induced a third stoppage after sliding off at the troublesome Degner curves early in Q3, the stage was set for a dramatic shootout.
Kimi Raikkonen set the first time - a lap of 1min 33:010secs - with just over three minutes remaining before Vettel smashed that by nearly a second.
Trulli then posted a 1:32.220 to just miss out on pipping the Red Bull to pole and after Nick Heidfeld, Adrian Sutil and Hamilton also failed to usurp the German, all eyes were on the Brawn duo of Button and Barrichello.
Button, however, could only manage a time of 1:32.962 and will start seventh, although he will be cheered by the fact Barrichello is only two places in front of him after edging his team-mate by three tenths. Button needs to beat the Brazilian by five points to claim his maiden drivers' crown.
Hamilton trailed Vettel by 0.225secs and will start his first race at Suzuka in third, ahead of Force India's Adrian Sutil. Heidfeld claimed sixth and Raikkonen eighth. Kovalainen will start ninth and Sebastien Buemi a creditable 10th in the Toro Rosso, although neither set a time in Q3.
Q2 was red flagged with just over 11 minutes to go when Alguersuari ran wide exiting turn eight and drove straight on into the tyre barrier but the Spaniard managed to walk away from the wreckage of his Toro Rosso and was taken to hospital as a precaution.
Another red flag came shortly afterwards when Glock, who missed Friday practice with illness, ran straight on at the final corner and smashed into the barrier, destroying the front of his Toyota.
The German was quickly attended to by marshals, who covered the scene with a white sheet as an understandably worried Toyota garage looked on.
However, replays showed Glock managed to remove the steering wheel and place it on top of the nose of his car shortly after the impact before he was stretchered away in an ambulance.
It was later confirmed he was transferred to a hospital in Yokkaichi having sustained a left-leg wound and complaining of back pain but, otherwise, his general condition was okay.
It meant a frantic scramble for the remaining 15 drivers to book their place in the final qualifying session and Hamilton initially led the way with a time of 1:30.627.
Vettel bested that by almost three tenths to eventually top the session ahead of the Englishman but, for championship contenders Barrichello and Button, everything came down to just one lap.
There was further drama as Barrichello almost ran into Buemi's front wing after the Swiss driver had left it in the middle of the track when he scraped along the barrier up the hill towards 130R but thankfully both he and Button managed to avoid the debris and make it though to Q3 in sixth and fourth places respectively, with Trulli third and Raikkonen fifth.
Meanwhile, Nico Rosberg's Williams, Fernando Alonso in the Renault and BMW Sauber driver Robert Kubica joined Glock and Alguersuari in seeing their participation ended.
Vettel led the way in Q1 with a time of 1:30.833 ahead of Hamilton and Button.
Buemi was one of the first out on track for the 20-minute session and promptly ended up backwards in the tyre wall near turn nine after going off in a similar spot to Alguersuari and where Mark Webber saw his day come to a premature end during morning practice.
Despite sustaining minor damage to the rear wing, the Swiss driver managed to recover and place his Toro Rosso an impressive fifth behind Trulli's Toyota.
Webber's crash meant the Red Bull driver was unable to take part in qualifying and he was joined by Ferrari's Giancarlo Fisichella, the Williams of Kazuke Nakajima, Romain Grosjean in the Renault and Vitantonio Liuzzi's Force India in failing to progress.
Vettel admitted he had enjoyed the rub of the green in a dramatic qualifiying session.
"You are sitting in the garage, planning when to go out and sometimes you're lucky because the red flag comes when you're about to warm up your tyres and sometimes not because you've started your flying lap already, especially in Q3 as it affects the fuel loads.
"We were quite lucky, the car worked fantastically, probably the most difficult was Q3. The tyres don't last more than one lap really," he said.
"With three races to go, it's quite a big gap (to championship leader Button), so all we can do is race and try to win and we are in the best starting position. We will see. It's a long race, tough on the tyres and tough on the drivers."
Trulli admitted Glock's accident had played on his mind.
"The first thing I did was ask about Timo's condition and they told me he was fine, I was upset about the crash and it was a crazy session," the Italian said.
"I knew it would have been very hard, it was all about keeping concentration and getting it right at the right time.
"For tomorrow, my only concern is tyre degradation and the start as we are not known for our start."
Hamilton, meanwhile, was surprised to finish third.
"We didn't expect to be as competitive as we were," he said.
"This morning, the car was terrible to drive and we had to make some serious changes. We only had one practice session so we went straight into qualifyng with all these changes hoping they were the right step forward and they were."