Hamilton leads McLaren 1-2 European GP qualifying

Lewis Hamilton took pole position for the European Grand Prix on Saturday to lead a McLaren 1-2 in qualifying.

Hamilton had a best lap of 1 minute, 39.498 seconds around the Valencia street circuit to give the defending Formula One champion his first pole of the season.

Teammate Heikki Kovalainen slipped up at the last corner on his final flying lap and will start Sunday's race from second spot.

"Clearly, we have very, very good pace this weekend," said Hamilton, who is coming off his first win of the season at the Hungarian GP. "We thought we would be competitive, but I don't think we thought we'd be on the front row."

Brawn GP's Rubens Barrichello will start third ahead of Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel and overall leader Jenson Button.

Luca Badoer, who is replacing the injured Felipe Massa for Ferrari, qualified last on the 20-car grid on his return to F1 after a 10-year absence.

Kovalainen was poised to give Hamilton a run for pole but slid out as he came out of the penultimate turn to give Hamilton his 14th career pole and McLaren's first 1-2 start since last year's Hungarian GP.

"I took it to the limit. You can always argue it could have been better, but in qualifying it can go either way. I didn't lose more than one place so it's fine," said Kovalainen, who has had to endure constant speculation over his future with the British team.

Massa won here from pole position last year when the top three finished in the same positions as they started with Hamilton placing second.

McLaren's KERS advantage - which provides a boost for overtaking and to defend challenges from other cars- is likely to make it a clear favorite, even if Hamilton's rear wing is still not fully fixed following an accident in practice on Friday.

"(KERS is) very important here, it's really helping us here," Kovalainen said.

Button, who made a mistake on his last qualifying run, remained ahead of Red Bull's Mark Webber, his closest competitor in the standings.

Button has 70 points after 10 races. Webber, who will start from ninth, has 51.5 followed by Vettel with 47 points.

"It's a different kind of track and proving to be a more difficult one for us," Webber said. "I expected us to be a little bit better here ... everyone's had some tough circuits at some stage (this season) and this is ours."

Vettel said there was "no more room for errors and mistakes" with only seven races left.

"At the start it will be very difficult to beat them but later we will see," the German driver said. "It will be interesting to see from a different angle how much of an advantage KERS is."

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen will start sixth ahead of Nico Rosberg of Williams an Renault's Fernando Alonso on a track that reached temperatures of 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

With Massa recovering from life-threatening head injuries and Michael Schumacher unable to replace the Brazilian due to a neck injury, Badoer was called up for the first time since the 1999 Japanse GP after 10 years as a Ferrari test driver.

The 38-year-old Italian is unlikely to snap a record 48-race streak without a point and was the only driver not to record a time of under 1:40. Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari, who is half Badoer's age, qualified 19th in his second career race but nearly 1.5 seconds ahead of Badoer.

"With these difficulties you might think 'Mamma Mia!' but I'm happy moving forward from today," Badoer said. "I ask you to be patient because I need my time, I'm not a robot or superman, I'm human. I need just more time."

Romain Grosjean qualified 14th in his debut for Renault He is the first Frenchman since Patrick Tambay in 1984 to drive for the French team.

Toyota drivers Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli failed to crack the top 10 for the third straight race. Glock will start 13th and Trulli 18th.