Formula One may be about to get the climax it has yearned for after Lewis Hamilton, who needs to stop Nico Rosberg winning Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix to keep alive his own title chances, won pole position for the race.

He beat Rosberg into second place by a 10th of a second here on Saturday. It was his second pole in Brazil and the 60th of his career, so he is within striking range of the all-time leading pole-sitters, Michael Schumacher (68) and Ayrton Senna (65).

With two races to go and 50 points available, Rosberg leads the race for the title by 19 points; victory on Sunday would give him his first championship but he also knows that a second and a third place from the last two rounds would suffice.

What everyone is patiently waiting for is a coming together of the two Mercedes drivers – that has not happened since the Austrian Grand Prix at the beginning of July.

Everyone is also hoping for some rain at Interlagos. When it rains on this bumpy circuit, with its tight corners, anything can happen. It threatened to rain throughout Saturday’s qualifying session, on a cold, blustery, overcast afternoon. More rain is forecast on an unsettled looking Sunday, although it may fall outside the race hours.

Hamilton had the edge over Rosberg throughout qualifying but in the end, in Q3, the difference was just 0.102sec.

Hamilton said: “Honestly, I felt quite comfortable in qualifying, as I have all weekend. Nico’s been going quicker and quicker but I’ve generally had it covered. This is the best I could have hoped for coming to Brazil. It’s always a track I’ve struggled at, so I’m glad to be at the front.” Remarkably, it was the 19th pole for Mercedes in 20 race weekends this year.

Rosberg was conceding nothing. “It was exciting, it was very close,” he said. “Lewis was marginally quicker in the end. But pole isn’t always the guy who wins the race, so I’m still optimistic for tomorrow.”

The short rush to the first corner could well be the most exciting feature of the race, and the most dangerous for Rosberg. Behind Hamilton and him will be Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari), Max Verstappen (Red Bull), Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) and Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull).

Meanwhile, Verstappen says he will not change his aggressive driving style, despite carping from some of the sport’s elder statesmen.

He said: “It will be the same like always. I won’t change my approach which is pretty understandable. As a driver you always try to do the best possible job. It is always positive if they are talking about me. At least you are doing something right.”

He added: “You just focus on yourself and try and do the best possible job for the team and yourself and that is on track. That is where you do the talking.”

The surprise casualty in Q1 was Jenson Button, who is not ending his Formula One career as he would want. He said to his McLaren race engineer, with sarcasm: “Yeah, we definitely sorted those problems out, didn’t we? I had oversteer snap and then understeer. No front-end grip.”

He added later: “The car was well balanced yesterday and today it’s a completely new car … at high speed, it’s just so on the nose and then you destroy the rears at low speed. It’s annoying.”

Jolyon Palmer maintained his improved form by outperforming his Renault team-mate Kevin Magnussen for the third time in four race weekends and getting into Q2. Renault recently announced that they would be retaining Palmer for 2017.