VALENCIA, Spain — Lewis Hamilton took the pole position for the European Grand Prix today to lead a McLaren 1-2 in qualifying.

Hamilton had a best lap of 1 minute, 39.498 seconds around the Valencia street circuit to give the defending Formula One champion his first pole of the season. Teammate Heikki Kovalainen will start Sunday's race from second spot.

"Clearly, we have very, very good pace this weekend," said Hamilton, who is coming off his first win of the season at the Hungarian GP. "We thought we would be competitive, but I don't think we thought we'd be on the front row."

Brawn GP's Rubens Barrichello will start third ahead of Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel and overall leader Jenson Button.

Luca Badoer, who is replacing the injured Felipe Massa for Ferrari, qualified last on the 20-car grid on his return to F1 after a 10-year absence.

Kovalainen was poised to give Hamilton a run for pole but slid out as he came out of the penultimate turn to give Hamilton his 14th career pole and McLaren's first 1-2 start since last year's Hungarian GP.

"I took it to the limit. You can always argue it could have been better, but in qualify it can go either way. I didn't lose more than one place so it's fine," said Kovalainen, who has had to endure constant speculation over his future with the British team.

Massa won from pole position last year when the top three finished in the same positions as they started, with Hamilton placing second.

Button remained ahead of Red Bull's Mark Webber, his closest competitor in the standings.

Button has 70 points after 10 races. Webber, who will start from ninth, has 51.5 followed by Vettel with 47 points.

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen will start sixth ahead of Nico Rosberg of Williams and Renault's Fernando Alonso on a track that reached temperatures of 113 degrees.

With Massa recovering from life-threatening head injuries and Michael Schumacher unable to replace the Brazilian due to a neck injury, Badoer was called up for the first time since the 1999 Japanese GP after 10 years as a Ferrari test driver.

The 38-year-old Italian is unlikely to snap a record 48-race streak without a point and was the only driver not to record a time of under 1:40. Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari, who is half Badoer's age, qualified 19th in his second career race but nearly 1.5 seconds ahead of Badoer.

Romain Grosjean qualified 14th in his debut for Renault. He is the first Frenchman since Patrick Tambay in 1984 to drive for the French team.

Toyota drivers Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli failed to crack the top 10 for the third straight race. Glock will start 13th and Trulli 18th.