With two phenomenal laps in Q3 Lewis Hamilton won the poleposition for tomorrow’s Chinese Grand Prix at the track near Shanghai. He outpaced by 0.186sec Sebastian Vettel. Third and fourth were Lewis’ teammate at Mercedes Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen with the second Ferrari. All of them posted times below the record lap of Michael Schumacher back in 2004.
For Lewis it was the 63rd pole of his career, for Mercedes – 75th in 150 starts.
6th pole in a row ?
63rd pole overall ?@LewisHamilton was super in Shanghai today #ChineseGP ?? pic.twitter.com/8NIu4JgWxB
— Formula 1 (@F1) 8 April 2017
In a far better time than yesterday’s weather qualifying started at 32 degrees temperature of the asphalt. This morning drivers managed to quickly test the soft and supersoft tyre compounds. Medium was never tried.
In Q1 Romain Grosjean went off spinning in the last turn. He did not hit the crash barriers, but had a puncture. Ferrari appeared at the track later in the first part of qualifying and were the only ones with softs. Vettel recorded a remarkable time – 1:33.078 min. Hamilton was second, followed by Raikkonen.
Max Verstappen called that something was wrong with the engine. 6 minutes before the end of Q1 he had to go through FIA’s scales, but still had time to get back on track for another attempt. The problem persisted despite advice to change modes. So he remained at the bottom of the column.
In the final seconds of Q1 Antonio Giovinazzi tried to better his time and lost control on the last turn. He crashed badly in the fences but fortunately came out unscathed from his Sauber. Red flag stopped the last laps of several drivers.
In Q2 Vettel was fastest again – this time with supersofts. Hamilton gave second time, just 15 thousandths shy from the German’s. At the end of the second part Lewis lefy the car to the mechanics, preparing it for Q3, while Ferrari made one more stint. This time Raikkonen recorded a new best, followed by Vettel. The Finn broke with his 1:32.181min the track record of Schumacher from 2004.
In his first Q3 attempt Lewis Hamilton was super fast – 1:31.902 min!
Vettel was nearly two tenths behind, Bottas – even further and Kimi complained about the oversteer and asked if something was changed in the settings.
In the last attempts Lewis was even faster in the first sector with 0.043sec, improving his own best achievement by 0.224 seconds and reached a record 1:31.678min.
PROVISIONAL CLASSIFICATION (END OF QUALIFYING)
6th pole in a row for HAM ?
One THOUSANDTH between VET (P2) and BOT (P3) ?#ChineseGP ?? pic.twitter.com/EvtOFEABwA
— Formula 1 (@F1) 8 April 2017
