Lewis Hamilton achieved his third successive pole position by setting the quickest time at the Chinese Grand Prix.
In additional to taking the number one spot in China, the Mercedes driver recored his 34th career pole position in Formula 1.
Holding off the Red Bulls must be a bonus to the 2008 world champion.
With qualifying held in wet conditions, initially with most running on wets before the intermediates became the tyre of choice.
Hamilton went fastest on his first run in Q3 then improved by almost half a second on his second run to consolidate his place.
With this pole position in China, Hamilton has now broken Jim Clark’s British record, with only Michael Schumacher (68), Ayrton Senna (65) and Sebastian Vettel (45) still ahead of him overall.
Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo will start second, setting a time six tenths slower than Hamilton on his final Q3 attempt.
This means the Australian has outqualified his team-mate Sebastian Vettel for the third time this season, with the defending world champion only in third place ahead of the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg.
Rosberg had looked set to take provisional pole away from Hamilton on his second Q3 run, but he carried too much speed into the hairpin, running wide and preventing him from improving.
A spin at the final corner on his final attempt ensured that Rosberg could do no better than fourth.
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso was fifth quickest having never threatened the top positions during qualifying, with the Williams pairing of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas closely matched in sixth and seventh respectively.
Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg qualified eighth, ahead of Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne.
While Romain Grosjean put a Lotus into Q3 for the first time this season, despite ending up the slowest in the top ten shootout.
Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen and McLaren driver Jenson Button were the big-name casualties during Q2.
Both were unable to set a good enough pace on their second set of intermediates to break into the top ten after being bumped out of it by well-timed improvements by Vergne, Massa and Hulkenberg.
Button, who complained of a lack of front tyre temperature, and Raikkonen both lapped quickly enough in the first two sectors to make Q3 on their final laps, but worsening conditions in the final sector made it impossible to improve overall.
Daniil Kvyat will start in P13 ahead of Adrian Sutil, Kevin Magnussen and Sergio Perez.
Esteban Gutierrez was the fastest of those to fall in Q1.
The Sauber driver had looked set to seal a place in the second stage of qualifying with a late run on intermediates before a very poor final sector, including a wide moment at the final corner, ruined his attempt.
Caterham’s Kamui Kobayashi beat Jules Bianchi to P18, with team-mate Marcus Ericsson outpacing the Marussia of Max Chilton.
Pastor Maldonado was classified P22 as he was unable to participate thanks to an engine problem that forced him to stop on track during FP3.
So a brilliant qualifying record for Mercedes. Four pole from four races with Lewis Hamilton setting a new British record with poles.
Can the Silver Arrows continue that impressive run into the race? It should be a fascinating Chinese Grand Prix.
Qualifying positions at the Chinese Grand Prix:
1. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m53.860s
2. Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1m54.455s
3. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m54.960s
4. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m55.143s
5. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m55.637s
6. Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1m56.147s
7. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1m56.282s
8. Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m56.366s
9. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Renault 1m56.773s
10. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m57.079s
11. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m56.860s
12. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m56.963s
13. Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Renault 1m57.289s
14. Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 1m57.393s
15. Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1m57.675s
16. Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1m58.264s
17. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1m58.988s
18. Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault 1m59.260s
19. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari 1m59.326s
20. Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 2m00.646s
21. Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari 2m00.865s
22. Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault
107 per cent time: 2m03.602s
Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel has admitted that Daniel Ricciardo’s impressive form means he has step up his performance. Autosport.com has the news story.
Sebastian Vettel admits he “has to do a little better” after being outqualified by new Red Bull Formula 1 team-mate Daniel Ricciardo for the third time this season in China.
The four-time world champion qualified third for the Chinese Grand Prix, a little over half a second behind the Australian, and more than a second in arrears of polesitter Lewis Hamilton.
The result sparked Vettel into admitting that he has to improve is he is to take the intra-team fight to Ricciardo.
“This year is very, very different, the cars are different, you cannot compare last year to this year,” Vettel said.
“Daniel is doing a very good job. He has not had one good weekend, he has had [consistent] good weekends.
“So far he is able to get the maximum out of the car, and on my side, maybe I am struggling a bit more.
“But at the end we have the same car so if he beats me he beats me fair and square. That is not to my liking. Equally I know I have to do a little bit better.”
Vettel added that the team is focused on holding on to a podium spot in Sunday’s race, but that weather could well play its part.
“They say the weather should be fine tomorrow but you cannot trust the weather forecast, so it’s best to look out the window in the morning and see what you have,” he said.
“With tyres we are a bit compromised, as we used those tyres today. Hopefully we can finish similar to where we started.”
Last year’s Chinese Grand Prix winner Fernando Alonso says Ferrari is closing in on Red Bull in terms of performance. Autosport.com has the details.
Fernando Alonso says the Ferrari Formula 1 team is homing in on Red Bull after making a step forward with its car in China.
Alonso finished a distant ninth in Bahrain last time out, but topped both of Friday’s dry free practice sessions in China before qualifying fifth in the wet on Saturday, behind the Mercedes and Red Bulls.
Although Alonso was well adrift of the Red Bulls in the wet, he feels Ferrari has closed the gap in the dry thanks to improvements made to the car since the last race.
“Mercedes is out of reach in dry conditions, but I don’t think Red Bull is too far away,” said Alonso.
“Mercedes has been very strong in dry conditions, so if we can have a good pace in the race, be close to Red Bull and even fight with them it would be good news.
“Hopefully we can be closer, not 30 seconds behind like in Bahrain.
“Yesterday the car was a little bit more competitive than what we had in the first two races, so the steps that we brought here, they work fine. That’s positive news.
“We were too far behind the leaders in the first three races; tomorrow we can hopefully get closer.
“It doesn’t mean I will fight for the podium, because I still think we are maybe not up there, but definitely we are closer.
“It’s the first step of many that we want to make to be more competitive.”
Red Bull suffered a fuel-flow sensor failure on Sebastian Vettel’s car during qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix, AUTOSPORT can reveal.
The failure, which led to the sensor not producing any readings, occurred during Q1 and led to the team using its own fuel-flow model with permission from the FIA.
This follows another problem believed to have occurred during Friday practice, when one of Red Bull’s fuel-flow sensors started to ‘drift’, meaning the figures produced appeared to shift even though the engine operation parameters remained unchanged.
Red Bull would not comment on the problem, but during Monday’s hearing of the team’s appeal against Daniel Ricciardo’s exclusion from the Australian GP, the fact that the Total fuel it uses can damage a seal in the meter and lead to outright failures was raised.
“We discovered and now we have identified the issue,” said FIA head of powertrain Fabrice Lom when giving evidence.
“It is an issue that is now understood well and we know that it only affects the reliability of the sensor.
“We discovered that there is a seam, an o-ring in the sensor, that doesn’t support the Total fuel chemical composition so the seal is damaged by the fuel, which kills the sensor.”
There have been a number of sensor failures during 2014, with Red Bull suffering them in at least three out of four grand prix weekends to date.
During the hearing, Lom also suggested that problems could also be caused by modifications made to the sensor by several teams, including Red Bull.
This is something that teams will no longer be able to do from next month’s Spanish GP onwards thanks to a technical directive issued by the FIA.
“We identified the chemical composition issue of the Total fuel, but we also have another clue, which is the teams that are modifying the sensor,” said Lom.
“If you take the picture of the sensor, you have two connections, and some teams, Red Bull for example, are removing these connections and putting in their own connections.
“If it [the new connection] is a bit too long inside, it can touch and tube where the measurement is done. This is the second cause we can have.”
Source: Autosport.com
Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg has admitted that he was misled by a dashboard readout, which affected his qualifying run. Autosport.com has the details.
Nico Rosberg has revealed a misleading dashboard readout played a part in qualifying a disappointing fourth for the Chinese Grand Prix.
The Mercedes driver was 1.283 seconds slower than team-mate Lewis Hamilton’s pole position mark after failing to improve on his first flier when he locked up and ran wide at the Turn 14 hairpin on the first attempt of his final run.
Rosberg had a second chance to improve, only to spin at the final corner in the belief that he had to make up time because his dashboard indicated he was two-tenths of a second off his banker lap time, rather than six-tenths up.
The delta on the dashboard is calculated by taking into account distance travelled and time in comparison to a reference lap.
But as Rosberg had travelled 30 metres further on the lap in question than on the reference lap, possibly as a result of distance added by different lines and lock-ups in wet conditions, the delta given was misleading even though the system was functioning correctly.
“I had an unexpected lock-up on the front, I don’t know why it happened yet,” said Rosberg of the mistake on the first attempt to improve his time.
“And then on the next lap, I was under a tenth slower by the time I got to Turn 14, so that would have been a quick lap.
“Unfortunately, coming out of the hairpin my time delta said to me that I was two-tenths slower than my reference time, which was the on I qualified on.
“So I said ‘two-tenths off, just take a risk at the last corner because I’m slower’. You might as well go for it and I spun.
“I wasn’t even annoyed, because I thought I was going to be slower. But I couldn’t understand how I lost eight-tenths in Turn 14.
“I knew I braked a bit carefully, but I had lost eight-tenths looking at my dash, which was strange.
“It’s so reliable normally that I believe it, and it was wrong. I was actually six-tenths up going into the last corner, so that was the problem.”
“The reason [why the dash didn’t give an accurate reading] was that I did 30 metres more on that lap, because in the rain you are all over the place with the white lines.”
Were Rosberg to have beaten his earlier Q3 lap by six tenths, he would have outqualified third-placed Sebastian Vettel and would have been close to securing a place on the front row ahead of Daniel Ricciardo.
But he accepted that he didn’t have the pace to beat Hamilton to pole.
“Even if everything would have gone right for me today, he was faster,” said Rosberg.
“He’s just been doing a good job in the wet.”
McLaren’s Jenson Button blamed the Q2 exit was due to a lack of downforce. Without grip, the Mercedes-powered MP4-29 struggled around the Shanghai International Circuit.
The result was neither Button and Kevin Magnussen made it into the top ten shootout. Autosport.com has the news story.
Jenson Button says McLaren’s Q2 exit at the Chinese Grand Prix can be traced back to a lack of downforce.
Neither he nor team-mate Kevin Magnussen managed to get into the top 10 in qualifying for round four of the 2014 Formula 1 season after suffering with a lack of grip in the wet conditions.
“I think this is a tough track anyway because of the cold temperatures we have had this weekend, and then you throw the rain into it,” he said.
“We are struggling and doing everything we can to get the tyres working.
“But I think overall grip is lacking in terms of downforce and, when you have that sort of issue, it is a lot easier to get rear temperature because you can spin the tyres, whereas fronts you can’t.
“It is very, very tricky – and that is one of the main reasons why I struggled today. So it is a shame to not get into Q3.
“It was a tough day but also a useful day to see where our weaknesses are.
“I am looking forward to tomorrow. There are a few cars that we know we can’t beat but there are lots of cars that we know we can race. We can get a good result.”
The wet weather struggles have left Button hoping that the sun returns on Sunday.
“I definitely want it dry – we will have a very tough afternoon if it is wet,” he said. “In the dry because it is cold it is still tricky, but we are able to just put the tyres in a good position. And I think we can race well.”
McLaren is confident that the clutch issues that put both Button and Magnussen out of the Bahrain Grand Prix have now been sorted.
Racing director Eric Boullier said: “It was trying to implement a bit too fast a new clutch mapping to make the shifting better.
“Everything has been done properly. We had two days of testing in Bahrain so instead of backing off completely, we found a solution inbetween and everything is fine today.”
Mercedes star Lewis Hamilton revealed he could’ve been even faster during the final part of a tricky, wet qualifying session at the Shanghai International Circuit. Autosport.com has the story.
Lewis Hamilton reckons he could have gone even faster in Chinese Grand Prix qualifying, despite taking the 34th pole position of his Formula 1 career by a massive margin.
The 2008 F1 world champion beat Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull by nearly six tenths of a second in the final part of a wet qualifying session at Shanghai on Saturday, and outqualified Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg by over 1.2s.
Although the gap to Rosberg was accentuated by a mistake by the German on his first run – and a spin caused by a faulty steering wheel display on Rosberg’s final lap – Hamilton revealed that his own best lap could have been even better.
“We’ve got the same car so there’s no difference between the cars really,” Hamilton said.
“I think there are maybe small, small set-up changes but we’re very similar there.
“You have to ask Nico what happened with him, but obviously he had that spin.
“If he put his sectors together I think he was three or four tenths behind – not as big a gap – but on the lap I got pole I lost quite a lot of time, so there’s more there.”
Hamilton also said it was “unbelievable” to eclipse Jim Clark’s record for the most poles scored by a British driver.
“I don’t pay too much attention to records but I feel blessed that I’ve had the chance to work with great people and have these good cars to be able to put these laps in – even more so with this team,” said Hamilton, who is now fourth in F1’s all-time pole list having topped qualifying 34 times.
“To be up there amongst the great names of all the Brits; I’m very very proud of that.
“To beat Jim Clark’s record is unbelievable really. I’m very grateful.”
Pastor Maldonado’s five place grid penalty was rendered meaningless on Saturday after engine problems ruled the Lotus Formula One driver out of Chinese Grand Prix qualifying.
While Romain Grosjean powered to the team’s first top 10 grid position of the season, Maldonado never got out of the garage.
The penalty, imposed for running into the back of Esteban Gutierrez’s Sauber at the previous race in Bahrain, will be deemed to have been served even though the former Williams driver lines up last anyway on Sunday.
Maldonado’s problems developed a little over halfway into Saturday morning’s final practice when his car’s Renault power unit developed a leak.
That required a change of engine, now a lengthy procedure with the new V6 turbos and their hybrid energy recovery systems and one that could not be done in time for the start of qualifying.
“I remain optimistic and I’ll do my best as always but it’s not a very good situation to be dealing with, but we are working very hard to keep improving,” said Maldonado, who had been sixth fastest in the practice session.
Lotus have had a difficult start to their season with chronic unreliability holding back the Enstone-based squad, who have yet to score a point in 2014 after winning the season-opening race last year and finishing fourth overall.
Their best result this season has been an eleventh place finish for Grosjean in Malaysia.
“We have made good progress this weekend,” said Grosjean, who qualified 10th. “We are hoping for a good race for tomorrow and hopefully we can stay in the top 10.”
Source: Reuters