Fernando Alonso finished in second place for Scuderia Ferrari, and Sebastian Vettel completed the podium, with third, for Red Bull Racing.

Hamilton slipped back from second to fifth, predominantly in the pit-stops; debris from a collision between himself and Felipe Massa caused a safety car period in the race.

Sebastian Vettel entered the race knowing that either a points finish or Jenson Button's failure to win, would see him crowned the sport's youngest double World Champion.

[8] Prior to the race weekend, it was announced that Button had signed a new multi-year deal with McLaren after recent rumours surrounding his future.

At the end of the session, whilst trying to set the fastest time, Sebastian Vettel crashed his Red Bull Racing at Degner.

After the session, Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, Sébastien Buemi, Kovalainen and Senna were called before the stewards for ignoring yellow warning flags, but no penalties were given.

Red Bull Racing, McLaren and Ferrari along with Michael Schumacher had used the medium compound tyres to get into the second part.

Schumacher's Mercedes teammate, Nico Rosberg failed to set a lap time because of a hydraulics failure, and would start the race from twenty-third.

Every driver used the option tyres in the second session apart from Pérez, who was prevented from setting a flying lap with a problem similar to Rosberg's.

In the dying moments of the session, Kobayashi, Bruno Senna and Vitaly Petrov all set lap times quick enough to progress into the top ten.

This meant that the Force Indias of Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta would have to start eleventh and twelfth respectively.

Hamilton, possibly not realising he had little time in which to cross the start/finish line, was making a gap to Button in front and changing dials on his steering wheel.

Once all the flying laps had been completed, Vettel took his twelfth pole of the season, putting him in a prime position to clinch the title the following day.

Behind the two Ferraris was Webber in sixth place, who was disappointed after making an error in not opening his DRS between the hairpin and Spoon corner.

[20] Kobayashi was seventh, his highest ever qualifying place, because he had started a flying lap, unlike Schumacher, who lined up eighth on the grid.

[6] Meanwhile, home favourite Kamui Kobayashi lost his seventh-place qualifying slot, slipping to twelfth when his anti-stall kicked in at the start.

[22] Hamilton was overtaken by Button on lap 9, after developing what the team believed to be a right-rear puncture (judging by their telemetry) at the time, before later discovering it was just heavy degradation.

The good pace and low tyre-degradation of the McLaren proved quite useful for Button, as he took the net lead on the next lap after making his pit-stop, leaving Vettel a second behind him.

Hamilton, seemingly unaware of Massa being there, went to take his normal line, breaking off a small endplate on the Ferrari's front wing.

The awkwardly placed piece of debris that had resulted from the Massa-Hamilton collision caused the safety car to emerge on lap 24.

He showed his frustration at having lost two places in the pits and at being unable to regain them when he wildly gesticulated after a Virgin got in his way whilst chasing Alonso.

A large battle for the final points scoring positions began on lap 46, when Adrian Sutil went down the inside of 130R to pass Kobayashi for ninth.

Teammate di Resta was falling back on worn out tyres though, with Vitaly Petrov taking eleventh from him only a few corners later.

Nico Rosberg would get ahead of both the Force Indias to claim the final points scoring position, overtaking Sutil around Dunlop on the penultimate lap.

Kobayashi's teammate, Sergio Pérez, made great use of a two stop strategy, by saving his tyres coming from seventeenth to eighth on race day.

Hamilton finished fifth for the second race in a row, followed by Schumacher, Massa, Pérez, Petrov and Rosberg, who completed the ten points scoring positions.

Button was delighted to have won in Japan, a place which was particularly special to him, because his girlfriend Jessica Michibata was born there, and because he had driven for the Japanese Honda team during his career.

[32] Niki Lauda was also highly complimentary of Vettel, going as far as to say that he was capable of breaking Michael Schumacher's record of seven world titles.

[33] Although, Vettel and Button were not the only ones receiving praise, Adrian Newey, Red Bull's chief technical officer, was congratulated by David Coulthard.

Therefore, if Red Bull were to clinch the title at the Korean Grand Prix, they would have to either score more than McLaren, or lose out to them by no more than a single point.