Bottas wins pole in China for F1’s one thousandth race, beats out Hamilton in P2 for Mercedes front row lockout; Vettel third fastest ahead of teammate Leclerc
Mercedes’ ostensible number two Valtteri Bottas laid down a scorching final lap of 1:35.547 in Saturday qualifying at the Shanghai International Circuit to claim pole for the Chinese Gran Prix tomorrow. Bottas, who tamale Lewis Hmaitlon by a single point in the Drivers’ standings in the early going, had the superior Silver Arrow on this day and in fact had already secured the pole when Hamilton crossed the line in front of him already a few one-hundredths down on the Finn’s previous fast lap as Q3 ended. Bottas wound up improving his already excellent time on his final pass nonetheless. It was the second Mercedes front row lockout in three race weekends so far this young season and marked Bottas first pole since Round 16 in Russia last year. There is next to nothing separating the two Mercs so it should make for a tight internecine battle up front between the two hard-charging teammates.
Ferrari were slightly slower than the Silver Arrows two weeks after dominating on pure pace in Bahrain. On the tricky high abrasion Shanghai Circuit, veteran Sebastian Vettel pipped his precocious teammate, Charles Leclerc, for P3 on the grid by a mere two-hundredths of a second. Vettel will be looking to reestablish dominance and bolster his confidence after his subpar performance in the Bahrain GP, which featured a P5 finish after an unforced spin by the German while dicing with Hamilton that surely cost the team points. And Leclerc will still be hunting his first career F1 victory and be highly motivated to bag it after he was heartbreakingly robbed of a seemingly certain win by mechanical issues late in that last race.
Further back, Max Verstappen’s Red Bull was the best of the rest with a decent P5 and while his new teammate Pierre Gasly had his best qualifying and will start beside the Dutchman in P6 he was still over eight-tenths behind Verstappen. On the other hand Daniel Riccardo got the better of his Renault teammate Nico Hulkenberg, out-qualifying him P7 to P8 by a hair’s breadth. The factory Renault team will be desperate to have both cars fisinsh solidly in the points after their double DNF in the desert a fortnight ago. The two Haas F1 cars of Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean rounded out the top 10 qualifiers in P9 and P10 respectively,
Top 10 qualifiers for the Chinese GP:
| POS | DRIVER | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1:32.658 | 1:31.728 | 1:31.547 | |
| 2 | 1:33.115 | 1:31.637 | 1:31.570 | |
| 3 | 1:33.557 | 1:32.232 | 1:31.848 | |
| 4 | 1:32.712 | 1:32.324 | 1:31.865 | |
| 5 | 1:33.274 | 1:32.369 | 1:32.089 | |
| 6 | 1:33.863 | 1:32.948 | 1:32.930 | |
| 7 | 1:33.709 | 1:33.214 | 1:32.958 | |
| 8 | 1:33.644 | 1:32.968 | 1:32.962 | |
| 9 | 1:34.036 | 1:33.150 | DNF | |
| 10 | 1:33.752 | 1:33.156 | DNF |
Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.
Tomorrow’s race airs live at 2AM Eastern on ESPN2 here in the States. So set your DVR or brew a fresh pot of late night coffee to see just who is going to win this contest in Shanghai amongst the very tightly grouped and competitive top 4. Hope to see you then to see how it all shakes out!