Pirelli and Ferrari have both called on the FIA to take action following a session in which four drivers failed to post a time.

Once again, fans were left frustrated as drivers opted not to post times in their attempts to save tyres for the race, a practice that is increasingly leaving the final phase of the session as something of an anti-climax. Indeed, at one stage it looked as though even the leading group were not going to come out for a second run, though in the final moments Vettel, Button and the rest of them did make an appearance with the German snatching pole from the 2009 champion by nine-thousandths of a second.

"Once again today, as has happened before during this season, we have seen cars - no less than four in Q3 - give up on doing a flying lap," said Ferrari's Stefano Domenicali. "Far be it for me to criticise those who made this choice, which is absolutely respectable from a technical point of view, I think it shows something is not right in the way qualifying is run and we should give it some careful thought for the future, because I don't think it's such a good thing for the spectators in the grandstand, who, I must say here are amazing in the way they make you feel their passion for Formula 1 and for those who are watching on television."

"It now seems to become a trend that some cars qualifying in Q3 do not set a time in order to save tyres," added Pirelli's Paul Hembery, "so we will be working with the teams and the FIA to find a solution that is acceptable to everybody to avoid this kind of scenario in the future, as it is not fair on the spectators.

"We have made a number of proposals in the past, which the teams rejected," he added, "but today showed that this remains a problem, which we would like to solve."

Check out our Suzuka qualifying gallery, here.