Lewis Hamilton takes first pole position for Mercedes - A stop-start qualifying session sees the Red Bull team falter
Published by Christine
Mercedes managed to show good pace throughout the Free Practice sessions in Shanghai, and that translated to qualifying on Saturday. Each and every qualifying session started with an extended period of waiting, as drivers were wary of using up their tyres. The soft compounds are a particular concern, degrading very quickly over just one or two laps.
Nevertheless, when the action did begin, we saw both Toro Rosso drivers getting out of Q1, dumping Valtteri Bottas and Esteban Gutiérrez in the drop zone instead. Daniel Ricciardo went on to get into the top ten, and qualified seventh!
Mark Webber came to a halt off track during Q2, after a fuel problem saw his session end early, he qualified 14th. Sebastian Vettel ran wide on his only flying lap of Q3, and he abandoned it, ending up ninth, ahead of Nico Hülkenberg who didn’t set a time, and Jenson Button who slowed to set a lap of a whopping two minutes.
At the front, Lewis Hamilton stormed to pole position, ahead of Kimi Räikkönen and Fernando Alonso.
