Ferrari’s incessant whining was drowning out even the awful music the Chinese race organisers where playing to try and distract from the fact the the grandstands had 12 people in them.

The whining failed to deliver any results as Red Bull got their first pole position (in a car with neither fancy diffusers nor KERS (pronounced KERS)) in the shape of 8 month old Sebastian Vettel beating his older team-mate Mark Webber (or Pops) to 3rd place.

Alonso came from precisely nowhere to split the Bulls in his Renault with a hastily sellotaped on double diffuser.

Hamilton got into the top 10, as did Raikkonen. But both their team-mates failed miserably.

But this weeks prize to dufus of qualifying has to go to Kubica who just didn’t really bother and popped home in Q3.

Pos  Driver       Team                  Q1        Q2        Q3      Laps
 1.  Vettel       Red Bull-Renault      1:36.565  1:35.130  1:36.184  11
 2.  Alonso       Renault               1:36.443  1:35.803  1:36.381  21
 3.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault      1:35.751  1:35.173  1:36.466  19
 4.  Barrichello  Brawn-Mercedes        1:35.701  1:35.503  1:36.493  21
 5.  Button       Brawn-Mercedes        1:35.533  1:35.556  1:36.532  19
 6.  Trulli       Toyota                1:36.308  1:35.645  1:36.835  21
 7.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota       1:35.941  1:35.809  1:37.397  23
 8.  Raikkonen    Ferrari               1:36.137  1:35.856  1:38.089  19
 9.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes      1:35.776  1:35.740  1:38.595  17
10.  Buemi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1:36.284  1:35.965  1:39.321  21
11.  Heidfeld     BMW-Sauber            1:36.525  1:35.975            14
12.  Kovalainen   McLaren-Mercedes      1:36.646  1:36.032            10
13.  Massa        Ferrari               1:36.178  1:36.033            11
14.  Glock        Toyota                1:36.364  1:36.066            14
15.  Nakajima     Williams-Toyota       1:36.673  1:36.193            13
16.  Bourdais     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1:36.906                      10
17.  Piquet       Renault               1:36.908                      10
18.  Kubica       BMW-Sauber            1:36.966                      8
19.  Sutil        Force India-Mercedes  1:37.669                      10
20.  Fisichella   Force India-Mercedes  1:37.672                      10