Sebastian Vettel has taken the first non-Mercedes pole of the season ahead of Daniel Ricciardo and Kimi Raikkonen.
In Q1 Mercedes felt the need to put on super-softs onto both cars such was their struggles in Singapore. Alex Rossi was only half a second away from his teammate, Stevens at the bottom end of the timesheet.
Those eliminated were: Rossi (20th), Stevens (19th), Maldonado (18th), Marcus Ericsson (17th) and Felipe Nasr (16th).
Come Q2 and Vettel led with a 1:44.7 ahead of Kvyat, Raikkonen and Ricciardo. The two Mercedes had closed the gap to under a second.
Sainz hit the wall in the final sector and brought the session to an early end with yellow flags for debris on circuit. His Toro Rosso had a skewed rear wheel. Verstappen managed to complete his lap before the incident and qualified for the top ten shootout, but the McLarens and the Force India’s were among those who didn’t get a second run and went out.
Eliminated from Q2 were Button (15), Sainz (14th), Perez (13th), Alonso (12th) and Hulkenberg (11th).
In the top ten shootout, Vettel led after the first round of laps with a 1:44.3 followed by Ricciardo, Raikkonen and then Kvyat. Rosberg was 1.5 seconds away and Hamilton aborted his lap. Verstappen did not set a lap either.
Vettel improved his time by another three-tenths to a 1:43.885 to claim pole whilst those behind him couldn’t improve on their second runs. Ricciardo 2nd, Raikkonen 3rd, Kvyat 4th, Hamilton 5th, Rosberg 6th, Bottas 7th, Verstappen 8th, Massa 9th and Grosjean 10th.
