Lewis Hamilton claimed his fourth pole position with a time of 1.53.860 ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix in a rather damp and drizzly qualifying session. In doing so, the Briton surpassed Jim Clark’s record for pole positions by a British driver.
Daniel Ricciardo will start second on the grid tomorrow after out-qualifying Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel by half a second. But Ricciardo’s Red Bull was a full 0.6 seconds off Hamilton who was fastest in all three qualifying sessions. The Mercedes driver’s 34th pole position moves him one clear of two-time world champion Jim Clark, and places him fourth in the all-time record list behind Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, and Vettel.
Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg had looked set to challenge Hamilton for pole position, but the German made two costly mistakes in the final session which resulted in him only qualifying in fourth place.
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso set the fifth fastest time under the watchful eye of new team principal Marco Mattiacci. The Williams duo of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas brought their cars home in 6th and 7th places. Nico Hülkenberg was eighth, with Jean-Éric Vergne and Romain Grosjean rounding out the top 10 qualifiers.
Several of the top drivers did not make it through to Q3 including Kimi Raikkonen who came close to being eliminated in Q1 already but set the 11th fastest time in the end. Fellow world champion, Jenson Button also failed to impress an only managed 12th.
Pastor Maldonado will start from the back of the grid after power unit problems kept his Lotus E22 parked in his garage.
After plenty of wet running so far this weekend, we are not expecting rain for the race tomorrow. What we are expecting is more Mercedes dominance and if Lewis Hamilton has anything to say about – come rain or shine – he’ll be holding the trophy on the top step of the podium tomorrow.
Join us for what’s bound to be an action packed race tomorrow. We’ll be running live commentary on Twitter @F1_Madness with pre and post race news, analysis and quotes from the teams and drivers.
Full timesheet for the Chinese Grand Prix qualifying:
