Vettel cruises to Shanghai pole position

Sebastian Vettel cruised to his third consecutive pole position of the season today as he easily outpaced his rivals in the qualifying session.

The Red Bull driver has dominated every practice session and reasserted his authority in qualifying with a storming lap which put him seven tenths of a second clear of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton.

Rosberg was an impressive fourth for Mercedes while the Ferraris qualified on the third row of the grid, more than a second down on Vettel’s pole position time.

Alguersuari and di Resta will line up on the fourth row. Buemi and Petrov - who couldn’t take part in Q3 because of a mechanical problem which left his Renault stranded on track at the end of Q2 – will be on the fifth row.

Mark Webber was a shock elimination in Q1. Having missed most of the morning running, the Australian had only one run on the hard tyre and could only qualify in 18th position.

Let’s have a look at how the session panned out :

Q1

Sauber’s Sergio Perez was the first to head out as the light went green. More drivers filtered out of the pits as he embarked on a first flying lap. He set an early benchmark of 1’38’’295 and lowered it to a 1’37’’585.

The Mexican was quickly overhauled as more drivers posted times on the board. Halfway through the first segment of qualifying, Vettel was leading the way and was closely followed by the McLarens of Button and Hamilton.

Some of the midfield teams used a set of soft tyres to mix it with the front runners. Nick Heidfeld leapt up to 2nd while Perez was up in 4th place. It was then Di Resta who popped up in 2nd, a couple of hundredths of a second slower than Vettel.

Alonso and Massa also popped up the order but the Ferrari one-two didn’t last long as Rosberg and Petrov went faster. Michael Schumacher rounded off the top five. While they all used a set of soft tyres, Vettel and the McLaren drivers set their times on the hard tyre.

There was a major surprise in this segment as Mark Webber failed to make the cut. The Australian had missed a lot of running this morning and only set the 18th fastest time. He was eliminated alongside the new teams’ drivers who were all within 107% of Rosberg’s mark.

Q2

The Toro Rossos led the way at the start and were quickly joined on track by Red Bull’s Vettel. The rest of the field – bar both Renaults – followed.

Jenson Button set the early benchmark but was soon beaten by his teammate Hamilton as Vettel slotted in third place. Alonso and Massa completed the top five.

Renault went for a single run in this session and were caught out by this risky strategy. Vitaly Petrov had just set the fourth fastest time when he parked his car just before Turn 6 – apparently with a gearbox problem. The session had to be interrupted with two minutes left on the board which was bad news for Nick Heidfeld who had just come out for his sole run.

Cars were piling up at the exit of the pitlane as the session restarted. The McLarens, Vettel and the Toro Rossos chose not to join them, assuming they were safe. They were proved right as few of the other drivers managed to improve.

Sutil missed the cut by a whisker as his teammate Paul di Resta made it through to Q3. Perez, Kobayashi, Schumacher, Barrichello, Heidfeld and Maldonado were also eliminated.

Q3

Button and Vettel were first out as the battle for pole began.

The Red Bull driver set a 1’33’’706 to outpace his McLaren rival by seven tenths of a second. Alguersuari and Buemi took third and fourth as the rest of the drivers chose to have only one run in this final shootout.

Vettel’s time was unchallenged and he took his third consecutive pole this season. Button held out on 2nd place. His teammate Lewis Hamilton was third fastest ahead of Mercedes’ Rosberg. Alonso qualified fifth.

Chinese GP qualifying times: