Ferrari surprised by their own speed as Sebastian Vettel grabs pole to Lewis Hamilton’s clear chagrin

Vettel, already the winner of the season’s opening races, was beaming happily as a thunderous Hamilton was headed to Mercedes’ garage

Sebastian Vettel qualified on pole position (Getty)

There was a moment in qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix, when it seemed Mercedes had finally found their mojo again. Lewis Hamilton sprang to the top of the timesheets with a lap of 1m 31.914s at the end of the second session, and he and team-mate Valtteri Bottas finished there ahead of the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel. Earlier, Hamilton had been as much as 1.1s off their pace.

As the denouement drew closer with the third and final qualifying session, however, the truth emerged very quickly. Raikkonen lapped in a devastating 1m 31.200s, and Vettel 1m 31.361s, and the best Bottas and Hamilton could manage was 1m 31.625s and 1m 31.675s each.

Worse was to follow. On their second runs neither of the Mercedes drivers could improve, and aborted, whereas Vettel shaved down to 1m 31.095s to snatch a 52nd career pole from his team-mate, who improved to 1m 31.182s.

Vettel, already the winner of the season’s opening races, in Australia in late March and Bahrain last weekend, was beaming happily as a thunderous Hamilton was headed to Mercedes’ garage.

“It was a crazy session,” Vettel revealed. “But the car was unbelievable and just got better. In the first part of Q1 I was really happy. I wasn’t having to fight the car so much, and the last fine-tuning was easy because I was very happy with the settings from the beginning. But it was tricky as the wind was changing; sometimes there was more, sometimes less, and it was gusty as well. I was having to look around at the flags, to get a directional reference.

“On my first run in Q3 I had a moment out of Turn 3 and exiting Turn 6 I lost the back end twice and lost some momentum. So on the last lap it was all to go for and I got it together and was very happy with the whole lap, not just last sector. The car just amazing. By Turn 16 I could see people going crazy outside car. That was really nice. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the sector times, with some green [meaning personal best] and a little bit of purple [meaning fastest of all].”

His improvement just edged out Raikkonen, who was on target for the pole until Vettel’s last sector. The Finn was his usual lucid self.

Kimi Räikkönen qualified in second (Getty)

“It was okay but not good enough, not exactly what I wanted. So we go into tomorrow and see what can do.”

Happy though he was, Vettel admitted that Ferrari’s speed was a surprise.

“The first three races have all been a bit different,” he said. “The tracks are quite different, but to have that gap was a surprise. Here you need to get out and find that sweet spot, so I won’t be surprised if that disappears tomorrow and it’s a tight race across three teams.”

Mercedes came here desperately in need of a victory, to boost morale and to stem the red tide, and fully expected to fight for pole; they too were surprised, to say the least. Shanghai has traditionally been a circuit on which they have flourished, but today’s lower temperatures – 15 degrees C for the track, 12 ambient - left them scrabbling as they historically do in Singapore.

Toto Wolff said tyre temperatures were to blame (Getty)

Team boss Toto Wolff said managing tyre temperatures had been their undoing. They’d had similar problems in Bahrain last weekend, too.

“We're lacking grip, and you can fall out of the window by the tyres getting too hot, or by the tyres being too cold,” he said. “The two extremes like we had in Bahrain. I think this is what happened. I think it's a tyre issue.”

“It's been a difficult day,” said Hamilton, who’d had a big spin in the final practice session. “We started the weekend positively in practice, but the car went away from us today, the pace just wasn't there. Ferrari have definitely improved over the weekend - maybe they didn't quite show their true pace yesterday - but today they were rapid. We were half a second behind them in qualifying, which is why I boxed [pitted] on my final lap because I knew I couldn't match their pace.

“It's not going to be easy to beat Kimi and Sebastian tomorrow, they're the quickest on the straights too, so overtaking will be tough. We start fourth and I'm gonna have to fight from there. We'll keep our heads up and keep pushing. The fans here in China have been amazing, and I hope they know I'll do everything to fight for them tomorrow.”

Lewis Hamilton missed out on top spot again (Getty)

It should be hotter tomorrow, however, and as Hamilton pointed out, “that could turn everything on its head”.

“Tomorrow it's expected to be much warmer, so I hope that we've done the right thing setup-wise and we have better pace in the race than Ferrari,” Wolff said, aiming for optimism.

Vettel didn’t seem too bothered by any of that, and denied that Ferrari had sacrificed some race pace to get ahead in qualifying.

“No, I think we tried to look at both. The forecast tomorrow is quite different, but we’ll see how it works.”

Daniel Ricciardo had a tough day (Getty)

Much had been expected from Red Bull here too, but they had yet another troubled day. Daniel Ricciardo’s car needed a power unit change after a turbocharger problem in the final practice session, and the Australian qualified sixth after limited running time, just behind team-mate Max Verstappen.

They were 0.701s and 0.853s off Vettel’s pace respectively, and both go into tomorrow hoping desperately that they will be able to have reliable runs, and to match Ferrari’s and Mercedes’ race pace.

Overall, however, the red cars appear to hold the high cards.