F1 2016: Rosberg falls short of Hamilton's super lap for Brazilian Grand Prix pole

If Nico Rosberg was thinking of wrapping up this year's driver's world championship with a win - as per the points permutations - he will have to do so the hard way. Starting behind Mercedes AMG F1 teammate Lewis Hamilton after the defending world champion took his 60th career pole position for Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix at Sao Paulo's Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace.

Hamilton flew around the 15-turn, 4.309 kilometre circuit in a time of 1min. 10.736sec. - an average speed of just over 219 km/h - with Rosberg second and just 0.102 seconds behind the Briton despite being faster over two of the three lap sectors on his final qualifying attempt of the session.

A second place finish for the German would not be the end of his championship hopes but it would take the title battle to the last race of the season in Abu Dhabi, with Rosberg being required to finish at least second again. It may be something that would seem like a forgone conclusion given the dominance Mercedes has enjoyed since the start of the current era of hybrid regulations, let alone their dominance this year. However, F1 has proved itself to be unpredictable in the past, especially the race starts.

This time around, Rosberg will have to contend with the intentions of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and Red Bull-Tag Heuer's (Renault) Max Verstappen. While neither Ferrari or Red Bull have been anywhere near Mercedes with regards to one-lap pace, a race start can throw up unknowns and potentially cause problems for either of the Silver Arrows drivers on the front row.

In addition to that, it is expected to rain on race day. Although the expected precipitation for qualifying didn't amount to anything more than the odd drops of rain - nothing that required teams to use anything other than soft compound slick tyres - it is expected to be a lot more in volume during the race.

Perhaps enough to see the upsetting of what many expect to be the natural race-finishing order of Hamilton leading Rosberg home to the chequered flag.

Maybe even Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo will be able to be a factor in the wet weather from the third row of the grid.

The 'best of the rest' behind the current big three - Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari - were represented by Haas-Ferrari's Romain Grosjean, Force India-Mercedes' Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez and McLaren-Honda's Fernando Alonso.

Hamilton aside, Alonso's qualifying performance was probably the most impressive of the three-part, knockout-system session as the Spaniard showed off some encouraging signs of progress for the former F1 heavyweight by consistently placing in the top ten in each of the three segments.

The former two-time world champion even managed to get as high as seventh after the first round of hot-laps in the final segment but then chose to not make a second attempt in an effort to save tyres and have some flexibility in race strategy.