Formula One: Lewis Hamilton takes pole for Spanish Grand Prix

• Lewis Hamilton grabs pole in Spanish GP

• Second=placed Williams driver Pastor Maldonado misses out on pole

• Jenson Button to start near back of the grid at 11th

Hamilton was the star performer during qualifying at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya, taking top spot on the grid by 0.6secs to give McLaren their 150th pole in Formula One.

In finishing second, Williams driver Maldonado attained his best qualifying performance of his F1 career to date.

Hamilton’s session, however, ended with him stopping on track, having been ordered to do so by his team.

Behind Maldonado are Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and the Lotus duo of Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen, with Sauber’s Sergio Perez a fine sixth.

Mercedes’ pair Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher start seventh and ninth, sandwiching Sebastian Vettel who blew both of his runs in Q3.

Kamui Kobayashi will start 10th as a hydraulics issue saw his Sauber grind to a halt at the end of Q2 and unable to take part in the closing 10 minutes.

The middle 15-minute session caused a stir as both Jenson Button and Mark Webber failed to make the final shoot-out as just one second covered the top 13 places.

Button will start 11th in his McLaren, with Red Bull’s Webber directly behind him, their worst grid positions since the races in Belgium and China in August and April last year.

Button said: “I don’t know where it went wrong. All day I’ve struggled with balance.

“I thought we would be reasonably competitive and at least get into Q3, but that’s not the case.

“That final run, I had a lot understeer. We’re out in Q2 and it doesn’t help because we don’t have any option tyres left for tomorrow.”

Force India still clearly have work to do on their package they had hoped would propel them into the top 10 as Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg start 13th and 14th.

Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo will start 15th and 16th, whilst there was more misery for Felipe Massa in his Ferrari as the Brazilian is 17th, his worst grid slot since lining up 24th in Singapore in 2010.

Bruno Senna earlier brought the curtain down on the opening 20-minute session in ignominious fashion.

Pushing to make it into Q2, the Brazilian spun his Williams into the gravel at the right-hander turn 12, stopping just short of a tyre barrier.

The error means Senna will start 18th, finishing 1.6secs behind team-mate Maldonado in Q1, the Venezuelan fifth quickest in the opening stint to underline what was possible.

On the 10th row of the grid are the Caterham duo of Vitaly Petrov and Heikki Kovalainen, followed by the Marussia pair of Charles Pic and Timo Glock.

Only one HRT qualified, however, with Pedro de la Rosa lining up 23rd as team-mate Narain Karthikeyan suffered technical issues, finishing nearly three seconds outside the 107% time.

It means the stewards will now determine whether Karthikeyan will compete tomorrow if they believe there are legitimate grounds for him to do so.