McLaren's Lewis Hamilton topped Adrian Sutil from Force India in the closing seconds of Saturday's qualifying to take the pole position for the Italian Grand Prix.

Hamilton, the defending Formula One world champion, turned a lap around the 3.6-mile, 10-turn Monza course in one minute, 24.066 seconds for his second pole of the season and the 15th of his F1 career.

"I don't think we anticipated being as quick as we are this weekend," Hamilton said. "It's a bonus for everyone on the team."

Sutil finished 0.2 seconds behind Hamilton for a career-best second starting position.

"The whole weekend has been a big success already, and we did really good work," Sutil said. "The car is amazing and really quick."

Kimi Raikkonen, winner of the Belgian Grand Prix two weeks ago, qualified third on Ferrari's home turf. Hamilton's teammate, Heikki Kovalainen, took the fourth spot.

Rubens Barrichello from Brawn GP will start fifth, while his teammate and current world championship leader Jenson Button will roll off sixth. Button holds a 16-point advantage over Barrichello with five races to go in the season.

Vitantonio Liuzzi, who replaced Giancarlo Fisichella at Force India, qualified seventh in his first start with the team.

Fisichella wound up qualifying 14th in his debut with Ferrari. He came on board with Ferrari last week to serve as substitute driver for the injured Felipe Massa.

Fernando Alonso from Renault qualified eighth, while Red Bull Racing teammates Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber grabbed the ninth and 10th starting positions. Vettel is the defending race winner.

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