Shanghai: Sebastian Vettel will start from the front row of the grid on Sunday, securing his 52nd pole position and is looking good for the 50th win of his racing driver career in Formula 1. His team mate Kimi Raikkonen made sure the grid’s first row was once more painted red, ahead of the silver cars of Valtteri Bottas and reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton.
Despite the cold weather, Chinese fans turned out in large numbers , enthusiastically waving the flags of the favourite drivers and cheering Vettel as he did the tradition end of session interview on the grid.
The use of tyres, softs in Q2 and Ultrasofts in Q3, would suggest both teams will be aiming for a long run before a late tyre change, something that would leave a big gap by race end, between the top drivers and the also-rans. This would confirm the two-team race which is a theme emerging since the start of the season. The one-stop strategy is also likely to be dictated by a long pit lane loss time (23secs) and a small margin for degradation, equating to losing 5secs if a two-stop option is adopted.
Ferrari will be confident of a top podium finish, as over the past 10 years the percentage of winners starting from the front row of the grid is 73%. However, the expected rise in temperature could mitigate these percentages, as could the sense that Mercedes set their car up in race trim due to their tyre optimisation window being narrower than Ferrari, who instead could afford to go for a setup which covered both qualifying and race.
Ferrari will be confident of a top podium finish, as over the past 10 years the percentage of winners starting from the front row of the grid is 73%. Less likely to be on the podium is Pierre Gasly, who after the Bahrain heroics in the Toro Rosso, could only manage 17th place. It was a tough day for McLaren too as Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne qualified in 13th and 14th, while Daniel Ricciardo, after an engine malfunction in FP3, made it to 6th and Max Verstappen one place ahead of him.
“It was a crazy session – the car was unbelievable and it just got better. I think right from the first lap in the first of part of qualifying, in Q1, I was really happy and in the end we didn’t have to do much on the car. I didn’t have to fight so much finding the last fine tunings. I was very happy with the settings I had from the beginning,” Sebastian Vettel, Scuderia Ferrari, said.
“Usually you change quite a lot, you change your mind… It was tricky, because also the wind was changing, sometimes more, sometimes less, and a bit gusty as well. Trying to look around the lap to see where the flags are, trying to get a reference. The last lap in Q3 I knew I could step it up. I knew I had a bit more in me, because on the first run I had two moments, out of Turn 3, accelerating I was probably a bit keen. The same out of Turn 6, I lost the rear twice, so I lost a bit of momentum in those places. So, I knew that I had a little bit more and obviously in the last lap I got it all together and very happy that when I crossed the line I was looking up to see the screen and I saw something green, which is usually good, and little bit of purple. Really pleased; it was a tight session but I think again a great result for the team.”
