Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/298224
52 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 20 APRIL 2014 FORMULA 1 Sport Hamilton takes dominant wet-weather pole in China LEWIS Hamilton romped to his third pole position of the season with a sublime performance in a rain-drenched qualifying session in Shanghai on Saturday after- noon. The Mercedes star, who now has more poles than any other Brit- ish driver, was over half a second quicker than Daniel Ricciardo, with the Australian's Red Bull team mate Sebastian Vettel pipping the spinning Mercedes of Nico Ros- berg to third. The weather played a part all through the session and was even worse at the start of Q1 than it had been during FP3 earlier in the day, and as a result everyone started out on Pirelli's blue-marked full-wet tyres. Only Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne, and the Caterham drivers ventured out on the green-marked intermediate rubber. As Hamilton set the fastest time from Force India's Nico Hulken- berg and Vettel, Esteban Gutierrez was the first driver not to make it through to Q2, lapping his Sauber in 1m 58.988s for 17th ahead of Caterham's Kamui Kobayashi and Marussia's Jules Bianchi. The Japa- nese driver recorded 1m 59.260s to the Frenchman's 1m 59.326s, while further back the second Cat- erham of Marcus Ericsson edged ahead of the second Marussia of Max Chilton, 2m 00.646s to 2m 00.865s. Lotus' Pastor Maldonado, already facing a five-place grid penalty for an infringement at the previous race in Bahrain, failed to make it out of the garage because of techni- cal problems and will thus start - at the stewards' discretion - in 22nd. Conditions had improved a lit- tle by Q2, prompting wholesale switches to the intermediates. Again Hamilton dominated, by four-tenths from Vettel, but this time there were a host of big names whose final efforts to get into Q3 fell short. Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was 11th on 1m 56.860s, 0.013s off Hulkenberg, while Jenson Button's final improvement in the McLaren to 1m 56.963s wasn't enough to better 12th. Daniil Kvyat was 13th for Toro Rosso on 1m 57.289s ahead of Adrian Sutil's Sauber on 1m 57.393s, while the second McLaren of Kevin Magnussen couldn't get below 1m 57.675s for 15th. Force India's Sergio Perez rounded out the Q2 runners with 1m 58.264s good enough for only 16th. Intermediates were again the fare for Q3, though Bottas opted initial- ly for full-wet rubber. Hamilton set the pace with a lap of 1m 54.348s, then trimmed that to 1m 53.860s to settle pole easily. But as Rosberg struggled and later spun at Turn 16 trying to go faster than his initial 1m 55.143s, first Vettel with 1m 54.981s and then 1m 54.960s, and then Ricciardo with 1m 54.864s and then 1m 54.455s moved ahead of the second Silver Arrow. Behind them a late improve- ment moved Fernando Alonso to a distant fifth for Ferrari on 1m 55.637s as Felipe Massa put his Williams ahead of team mate Valt- teri Bottas' with 1m 56.147s to 1m 56.282s. That bumped Hulken- berg's Force India down to eighth on 1m 56.366s, as Vergne's Toro Rosso jumped Romain Grosjean's significantly improved Lotus, with 1m 56.773s to 1m 57.079s. Thus the grid for Sunday's race - which is expected to be dry - lines up: Hamilton, Ricciardo; Vettel, Rosberg; Alonso, Massa; Bot- tas, Hulkenberg; Vergne, Gros- jean; Raikkonen, Button; Kvyat, Sutil; Magnussen, Perez; Gutier- rez, Kobayashi; Bianchi, Ericsson; Chilton, Maldonado. 2014 FORMULA 1 UBS CHINESE GRAND PRIX Pos No Driver Team Q1 Q2 Q3 Laps 1 44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:55.516 1:54.029 1:53.860 21 2 3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing-Renault 1:56.641 1:55.302 1:54.455 23 3 1 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing-Renault 1:55.926 1:54.499 1:54.960 23 4 6 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:56.058 1:55.294 1:55.143 22 5 14 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:56.961 1:55.765 1:55.637 21 6 19 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1:56.850 1:56.757 1:56.147 24 7 77 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1:56.501 1:56.253 1:56.282 24 8 27 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1:55.913 1:56.847 1:56.366 23 9 25 Jean-Eric Vergne STR-Renault 1:57.477 1:56.584 1:56.773 23 10 8 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1:58.411 1:56.407 1:57.079 22 11 7 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:58.279 1:56.860 17 12 22 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:57.783 1:56.963 17 13 26 Daniil Kvyat STR-Renault 1:57.261 1:57.289 18 14 99 Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 1:58.138 1:57.393 17 15 20 Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1:57.369 1:57.675 17 16 11 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1:58.362 1:58.264 17 17 21 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1:58.988 10 18 10 Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault 1:59.260 10 19 17 Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari 1:59.326 10 20 9 Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 2:00.646 10 21 4 Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari 2:00.865 10 DNQ 13 Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault No time 0 Note - Maldonado failed to make 107% requirement, so races at stewards' discretion. Drops 5 grid places as penalty for causing collision at previous round. The top three drivers (L to R), Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo, Mercedes pole man Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel acknowledge the fans after a thrilling qualifying session in Shanghai Mercedes driven by Lewis Hamilton