Lewis Hamilton continued Mercedes’ dominance in qualifying at the Shanghai International Circuit as he claimed pole position ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and team-mate Valtteri Bottas in another dramatic qualifying session.
Hamilton led the way after the first runs in Q3 ahead of Vettel and Bottas, and that is exactly how it ended as Hamilton scored a sixth consecutive pole position.
Vettel and Bottas were separated by just 0.001s in second and third respectively repeating the same top four in the season opener in Australia.
Kimi Raikkonen will start fourth ahead of Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo. Team-mate Max Verstappen will start down in 19th after suffering an engine software problem.
Felipe Massa was best of the midfield once again, seeing off a strong performance from Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg, who starts an impressive seventh.
Sergio Perez made it into Q3 for the first time this season, qualifying ahead of Daniil Kvyat and Lance Stroll.
Carlos Sainz was unable to match his team-mate’s efforts in Q2 and will start 11th ahead of Haas’ Kevin Magnussen.
Fernando Alonso was 13th and three-tenths shy of making it into the top 10 shootout. Both Saubers made it into Q2 but Antonio Giovinazzi was unable to take part in Q2 after crashing heavily in the final corner.
Giovinazzi’s crash at the final corner in the dying moments of Q1 cost Romain Grosjean a place in Q2, who was five-tenths up on Giovinazzi’s time who was 15th and on the cusp of dropping out. Grosjean, like many others was forced to back off and lost considerable time in the final sector.
This was the case for Jolyon Palmer, who dropped out of Q1 for the second race running as well as Esteban Ocon who will line-up tomorrow’s Chinese Grand Prix in 20th.
