Monza, Italy - World champion Lewis Hamilton kept his cool on Saturday when he stormed to the pole position for the Italian Formula One Grand Prix in a McLaren-Mercedes. Hamilton denied the rising Force India team a second straight front place on the grid when he countered a late charge from Adrian Sutil, with Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen third in his team's home event.
World championship leader Jenson Button was sixth in a Brawn GP. Italy's Giancarlo Fisichella placed eighth in his Ferrari debut, two weeks after claiming the first ever pole for Force India at the Belgian race in Spa.
The Briton Hamilton claimed his second pole of the season and 15th overall in 1 minute 24.065 seconds for the 5.793-kilometres lap.
The German Sutil took first place from Hamilton with 1:24.261 late in the final session before Hamilton had the last laugh after all.
"It is such a great feeling to put the lap together. You have one single shot at it in the end," said Hamilton. "We are feeling quite confident."
McLaren has improved in recent races with Hamilton winning in Hungary and coming second in Valencia at the European Grand Prix.
But Mercedes-powered Force India is also making big waves, with Sutil's best career qualifying confirming what Fisichella did a fortnight ago.
"It is a great day for me. The whole weekend has been great," said the German Sutil, who topped two of the three practice sessions in Monza before the qualifying rounds.
"The car is amazing ... It is such a different feeling, to know that you have a chance," the former backbencher said.
New teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi was impressive in his first race in two years by placing seventh, confirming the Force India trend.
Raikkonen clocked 1:24.523 two weeks after his first season win in Belgium. Button had 1:25.030, trailing teammate Rubens Barrichello, but ahead of Red Bull title rivals Sebastian Vettel, and Mark Webber.
Vettel placed ninth on the grid for the race where he claimed his first career win from pole last year. Webber followed in 10th place.
Button leads the championship with 72 points from 12 of 17 season season races ahead of Barrichello (56), Vettel (53) and Webber (51.5). But Button has not made the podium in the last five races after winning five of the first seven.
BMW-Sauber, meanwhile, met disaster as Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica had to retire with engine problems in the second qualifying round.
"The two cars had engine problems. It is either faulty parts or a wrong fitting of the engine into the car," said BMW motorsport boss Mario Theissen.
It remained unclear Saturday whether BMW would have to change the new engines which could drop each driver 10 places down on the grid, to the last two spots.
