Hamilton thwarts Vettel for pole in China

Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton put in the perfect lap in Shanghai to deny Sebastian Vettel pole position for the Chinese Grand Grand Prix.

It's Hamilton's 63rd pole position in Formula 1, his sixth in a row, and it had been a close-run affair. Until Q3,the Ferrari drivers had dominated both of the first two rounds of qualifying.

Hamilton and his Mercedes team mate Valtteri Bottas had pushed hard and edged closer as qualifying went on but appeared to lack the last couple of tenths needed to head off an all-Ferrari front row.

But that changed when it came to the final round. Hamilton pulled out all the stops on his first flying lap in Q3 and went top with 1:31.902s which was too fast for Vettel. Bottas took provisional third after Raikkonen complained of lack of grip on his latest set of supersofts.

As the chequered flag came out, Hamilton improved his time by two tenths which put him clear of Vettel. A terrific flier from Bottas put him just one thousandths of a second off Vettel, with Kimi Raikkonen having to settle for fourth place.

Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo finished qualifying in fifth place ahead of Williams' Felipe Massa and Renault's Nico Hülkenberg. Force India's Sergio Perez will start alongside his former team mate in eighth, with Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat in ninth.

Williams rookie Lance Stroll made it through to Q3 for the first time and will start from tenth on the grid.

Early exits for Verstappen and Grosjean

After Friday's mirk, it was a relief to see qualifying held in dry, bright and even intermittently sunny conditions.

The first round of qualifying claimed a big scalp when Max Verstappen was eliminated when his Red Bull developed an engine software problem. As a result, the Dutch driver will have to start from the back row of the grid on Sunday.

Romain Grosjean was also on the back foot in Q1 after the Haas spun exiting the final corner on his first flying lap. His second attempt to set a proper timed lap was thwarted by local waved yellows caused by Sauber's Antonio Giovinazzi. The Italian driver had run wide out of the final corner, touched the grass and spun into heavy contact with the tyre wall as the chequered flag came out.

Although he'd officially made it into Q2 in 15th place, Giovinazzi's crumpled car meant he played no further part in qualifying. The other drivers failing to make it into the second round were McLaren's Stoffel Vandoorne, Renault's Jolyon Palmer and Force India's Esteban Ocon.

Vettel had set the fastest time of Q1 with a lap of 1:33.078s, a quarter of a second faster than Hamilton and Raikkonen. There was a delay to qualifying while marshalls cleaned up the debris from Giovinazzi's accident and repaired the tyre wall.

When Q2 did get underway, Vettel quickly improved his time to 1:32.391s although Hamilton soon closed the gap to 0.015s ahead of Bottas. However, a late lap from Raikkonen saw the Finn finish top of the timings by two tenths.

Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz failed to pip Stroll for tenth place by six hundredths of a second. That meant Sainz joined Haas' Kevin Magnussen, McLaren's Fernando Alonso and Sauber's Marcus Ericsson on the sidelines for Q3.

Qualifying results

GALLERY: All the pictures from Saturday in Shanghai

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