Vettel will start the Chinese GP from the second row in his Ferrari

It was an exciting qualifying session at the Shanghai track today. Come the end of the hour long grid deciding session, the two Mercedes locked out the front row, with Hamilton on pole in 1.35.782 and Rosberg second with a 1.35.824. Sebastian Vettel will start from the second row in his Ferrari, third fastest with a 1.36.687. Kimi Raikkonen is sixth, separated from his team-mate by the Williams duo of Massa and Bottas.

Kimi Raikkonen: “I’m disappointed with the result, my car was behaving pretty well most of the time but in in my last run I was not able to put a good lap together. For some reason the handling of the car was different, more loose than in the previous laps and slippery on the rear especially in the first three corners. It’s a shame because in the previous sessions I had been satisfied with the behaviour.

My starting position for the race tomorrow it’s not ideal , but I expect to have the same good car we’ve had so far. We’ll try to do our best and I’m sure that with a good start we can extract the best result out of the situation.”

Sebastian Vettel: “All in all it was a good session for us. We had only one real run in Q3 and were able to nail this run and put the car on P3. It is a shame that we couldn’t put both cars side by side. As far as I was told, Kimi had some issues with traffic on the warm up lap and with these temperatures everybody is relaying on the out lap, to nail it on the flying one.

The pace is there and I am very happy with this. We have to keep our feet on the ground, Mercedes is very quick, and for a reason, they have a great car and both drivers seem to do a good job. So this makes them difficult to beat.

For us, though, I am happy where we are and I hope we can be a bit closer tomorrow. We also have to watch out for others. Never underestimate Williams, also Red Bull seems to be better this weekend: it will be a long race.”

Qualifying result for the Chinese Grand Prix

Scuderia Ferrari