Schumacher – attempting to save tyres again with a last minute effort – and Nico Rosberg in thirteenth and fifteenth respectively, with the Williams of Pastor Maldonado splitting them. Felipe Massa was the last man out on track at the end of the session, and looked likely to beat Nico Hülkenberg's tenth place time but abandoned his lap and was eleventh. After Hülkenberg elected not to set a time in Q3, his five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change came into effect, dropping him to fifteenth on the grid. The third and final session of qualifying began with a lack of action on track. However, the McLarens, Red Bulls and Lotuses all chose to do two separate flying lap efforts. After the first of these were complete, Vettel and Webber had set the first and second fastest times respectively. Webber was two tenths behind, hampered by an error at the hairpin; Button was third, followed by the Lotus cars of Grosjean and Räikkönen and Hamilton's McLaren, who despite being on a scrubbed set of tyres, was still one and a half seconds slower than Vettel. During the second phase and with time running out in the session, Räikkönen ran wide at Spoon curve, and whilst returning onto the track, spun again and stopped at the edge of the track. Yellow flags were brought out, and Pérez was the only driver in front of Räikkönen who did not have to slow down. Vettel and Webber were both on faster laps than their previous ones, but were unable improve their times because of the yellow flags. They maintained their grid slots, though, as the team took their first front row lock-out of the season. Vettel claimed his fourth successive pole at the Suzuka circuit, maintaining his 100% record there and, with the 34th pole position of his career, he moved into third in the all-time list for pole positions, behind Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna. It was decided by the stewards that Vettel had held Fernando Alonso up during his flying lap, but he was only given a reprimand. Button marginally improved his time, remaining in third place which would eventually become eighth on the grid due to a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change. Kamui Kobayashi took an impressive fourth place for Sauber, but immediately after he set the time it was suggested that he had not slowed down in