Brazilian Grand Prix: Rosberg on pole again, ahead of Hamilton and Vettel

New Delhi: Nico Rosberg claimed his five consecutive pole position of the 2015 Formula One season at the Brazilian Grand Prix qualifying on Saturday.

The German, who won the Interlagos race last year from pole, beat his Mercedes team-mate and champion Lewis Hamilton by 0.078secs. Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari was 0.522secs further behind, to take the P3 for Sunday's race.

Rosberg also set the fastest lap time of the weekend with a blistering 1:11.461 during Q1.

Williams driver Valtteri Bottas produced an impressive drive to finish ahead of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen. But he will start Sunday's race in P7 thanks to a three-place grid penalty for overtaking under red flags during second practice on Friday.

That will promote Kimi Raikkonen alongside his Ferrari team-mate on the grid, with Force India driver Nico Hulkenberg getting season's best P5 starting position.

However, for two former champions Jenson Button at P17 and Fernando Alonso P20, it was once again a sad outing in their dragging Mclaren cars. The Spaniard went out of Q1 after Q1 after a car failure, didn't set a time.

Red Bull's Daniil Kvyat beat home driver Felipe Massa of Williams to clock seventh fastest time, but the Russian driver will start tomorrow's race from P6, ahead of penalised Bottas.

RBR's driver Daniel Ricciardo produced only a ninth fastest time. And the Australian will have Toro Rosso's Max Verstappen and Sauber's Felipe Nasr for company in the middle section.

Nasr missed a place in the Q3 at his home GP by little over a tenth of a second, but is likely to start from P10 as Ricciardo bound to serve his grid penalty - droping to a provisional P19 when the penalty for his earlier engine change is applied.

Spaniard Carlos Sainz did just about enough to beat Force India's Sergio Perez and was 12th fastest. Sauber's Marcus Ericsson finished ahead of Lotus pair Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado.

American newbie Alexander Rossi beat his British team-mate William Stevens in the back row.