Chinese Grand Prix Qualifying: Hat Trick for Hamilton

On a Shanghai track that surely must rank among his favourites Lewis Hamilton carried his imperious  practice form into qualifying as he led Nico Rosberg to the front row for tomorrow's Chinese Grand Prix.

Hamilton's lap of 1:35.782 made it five pole positions from 12 Chinese Grand Prix qualifying sessions and a third in succession at the 5.451km circuit.

It also continues the reigning world champion's dominance of 2015 qualifying sessions, this time by 0.042s of a second from Rosberg whose final lap halved his deficit to his team-mate, Hamilton having failed to improve as the chequered flag dropped.

Hamilton topped all three free practice sessions and Q2 and Q3 in qualifying, missing out on the full house by electing to run medium tyres in the first part of qualifying, a luxury not available to anyone but the Mercedes drivers.

"China continues to be a good place for me," said Hamilton. "I guess the circuit fits my style more than others and I enjoy driving it. Also, you just have to look at the stands with all the banners to see how amazing the support we have here is every year.

"The car felt really good today and the guys back at the factories have done a great job since Malaysia to analyse where we could improve and make a step forward.

"The last race wasn't the tidiest but this weekend we've put it all together with no problems so far, so thank you to everyone for that. Let's hope it continues tomorrow. There's a long race ahead and the Ferraris are very quick once again here, so the job is far from done." 

Behind the flying Mercedes, Sebastian Vettel headed the Ferrari charge, albeit 0.905s slower than Hamilton, and the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix winner vaulted above Williams' Felipe Massa on his final run.

Massa shrugged off his free practice woes to beat Valtteri Bottas in qualifying for the third successive race, the latter struggling with understeer issues throughout his Q3 efforts.

Kimi Raikkonen was a disappointing sixth for Ferrari, the calm serenity of his Friday runs not in evidence as he battled his way through a scrappy lap that was just over half a second slower than that of his team-mate.

Daniel Ricciardo was a comfortable seventh, just over three tenths of a second behind Raikkonen but carrying a similar advantage over Romain Grosjean who hustled his Lotus to eighth ahead of the two Saubers who were the stars of qualifying by getting both Swiss machines into Q3 for the first time in over a season.

Felipe Nasr carried a slight advantage over Marcus Ericsson throughout the session and will start ninth his best 0.091s ahead of his Swedish team-mate.

Pastor Maldonado missed out joining Lotus team-mate Grosjean in the final part of qualifying by a scant seven thousandths of a second to Marcus Ericsson.

Daniil Kvyat was 12th in the second Red Bull with the consolation that he edged both Toro Rossos for whom Max Verstappen was the quicker, one position and 0.145s ahead of Carlos Sainz.

There was disappointment for Force India's Nico Hulkenberg after impressive free practice performance, as he was first to miss the Q1 cut off, slower than Daniil Kvyat's tyre-locking Red Bull by fully two tenths of a second.

The McLaren Honda, too, was disappointing after encouraging practice running and with more power unlocked from the ERS system there was a faint hope that they might make it to Q2. In the end Jenson Button edged Fernando Alonso by a scant four thousandths of a second for 17th fastest, the latter having missed all ofFP3 with an ignition system problem.

At the back, both Manors were comfortably inside the 107% time limit with Will Stevens showing well to beat Roberto Merhi to 19th by over seven tenths of a second.

Chinese Grand Prix Qualifying

1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m35.782s -

2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m35.824s 0.042s

3 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m36.687s 0.905s

4 Felipe Massa Williams 1m36.954s 1.172s

5 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1m37.143s 1.361s

6 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m37.232s 1.450s

7 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1m37.540s 1.758s

8 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1m37.905s 2.123s

9 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1m38.067s 2.285s

10 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1m38.158s 2.376s

11 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1m38.134s -

12 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1m38.209s -

13 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1m38.393s -

14 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1m38.538s -

15 Sergio Perez Force India 1m39.290s -

16 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1m39.216s -

17 Jenson Button McLaren 1m39.276s -

18 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1m39.280s -

19 Will Stevens Marussia 1m42.091s -

20 Roberto Merhi Marussia 1m42.842s -