First pole for Hamilton in rain-hit qualifying - A chaotic but brilliant session sees Mercedes on top
Published by Christine
To know that Red Bull and Mercedes were the teams vying for pole position makes it sound as though F1 in 2014 is much like that in 2013.
The first qualifying session results belied a fantastic session that started with yet more Lotus trouble. Pastor Maldonado failed to set a time, whilst Romain Grosjean wasn’t that much further ahead. Both struggled to keep their cars out of the gravel, and qualified last.
Kamui Kobayashi scraped through to second qualifying for Caterham and ended up securing 15th place, whilst the Marussia duo were out in the first session. Kimi Räikkönen crashed his Ferrari into the wall, the changeable conditions making the surface very difficult to manage.
Sebastian Vettel couldn’t improve on his lap time and dropped out in 13th, with Jenson Button also knocked out in Q2. Rookie teammate Kevin Magnussen battled into the top ten and ended up fourth.
At the front, Mercedes kept improving the pace, but Daniel Ricciardo clung to their coat-tails. He scored a provisional pole position, to the delight of the crowd, but was just pipped by Lewis Hamilton, the pair lining up on the front row.
