Qualifying for the Chinese Grand Pix went exactly to plan for Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg but his teammate, who was already facing a 5-place grid penalty for a gearbox change, didn’t even manage to get out of Q1 due to an ERS issue which will prompt an engine change for Lewis Hamilton.
The session was a little difficult with red flags over Manor’s Pascal Wehrlein’s crash in Q1 and then an errant wheel from Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India which will prompt a grid penalty for the German.
Perhaps the surprise of the session could be Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo squeezing out both Ferrari’s for second place leaving Kimi Raikkonen and teammate Sebastian Vettel 3rd and 4th.
The flying wheel of Force India’s scuttled the laps of McLaren duo Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button who both felt they may have had something to get them into Q3.
The old qualifying format may have changed the midfield teams a bit and unfortunately Haas F1 ran their second Q1 laps a little early leaving time for an improving track which relegated them to 14th and 18th.
| Pos | Driver | Car | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1m35.402s | – |
| 2 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull/TAG Heuer | 1m35.917s | 0.515s |
| 3 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1m35.972s | 0.570s |
| 4 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1m36.246s | 0.844s |
| 5 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams/Mercedes | 1m36.296s | 0.894s |
| 6 | Daniil Kvyat | Red Bull/TAG Heuer | 1m36.399s | 0.997s |
| 7 | Sergio Perez | Force India/Mercedes | 1m36.865s | 1.463s |
| 8 | Carlos Sainz | Toro Rosso/Ferrari | 1m36.881s | 1.479s |
| 9 | Max Verstappen | Toro Rosso/Ferrari | 1m37.194s | 1.792s |
| 10 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India/Mercedes | – | – |
| 11 | Felipe Massa | Williams/Mercedes | 1m37.347s | – |
| 12 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren/Honda | 1m38.826s | – |
| 13 | Jenson Button | McLaren/Honda | 1m39.093s | – |
| 14 | Romain Grosjean | Haas/Ferrari | 1m39.830s | – |
| 15 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber/Ferrari | 1m40.742s | – |
| 16 | Felipe Nasr | Sauber/Ferrari | 1m42.430s | – |
| 17 | Kevin Magnussen | Renault | 1m38.673s | – |
| 18 | Esteban Gutierrez | Haas/Ferrari | 1m38.770s | – |
| 19 | Jolyon Palmer | Renault | 1m39.528s | – |
| 20 | Rio Haryanto | Manor/Mercedes | 1m40.264s | – |
| 21 | Pascal Wehrlein | Manor/Mercedes | – | – |
| 22 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | – | – |
Wow a 5 grid postion wasn’t enough. Starting at the back should ensure a win. I’m voting Leave F1 the script is worse than a soap.
So far (Saturday night), a quite interesting weekend. Williams rear wheel rim issues, Magnussen’s Renault blowing another left rear (probably due to debris from Massa’s car), fiery Haas rear brakes… On the safety side, the circuit has shown it needs a little more work. On Friday there were photographers in the runoff/overshoot to the pit entry, and on Saturday the track sweeper car decided to park there while the operators stepped out to wash their hands… The qualifying session itself was refreshingly exciting, with the only real downer being the second red flag scuppering McLaren’s attempts at pushing into Q3.… Read more »
Whoooohooooo! What a race! It didn’t need a dodgy qualifying to ‘spice up the show’, just a few mechanical issues and a couple of ‘first corner nutters’, and its all on. Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull podium, and racing all the way through the field. That was fun, fantastic to see, racing, tyres, tactics and some mega overtaking.
Turns out F1 isn’t as broke as Bernie thought ;-)