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Hamilton eyes hat-trick after Shanghai pole
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LEWIS Hamilton is looking to secure his first-ever Formula One hat-trick after seizing his third pole of the season for today’s Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit.
A dominant Mercedes car gave the Briton over half a second advantage over Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull in yesterday’s qualifying, with defending world champion Sebastian Vettel third in the other Red Bull racer.
Clocking 1:53.86, it was the 34th pole of Hamilton’s career, moving him into fourth place on the all-time list, one ahead of former world champions Jim Clark and Alain Prost. Hamilton had been tied with Clark for the most poles of any British driver.
“Our rivals look closer in the wet conditions, so we’ll be hoping it’s a dry race to take advantage of the position we’re in,” said Hamilton, who is seeking his third straight victory after Malaysia and Bahrain.
Hamilton’s teammate and main competitor Nico Rosberg was fourth, making mistakes on his final two flying laps.
“I wasn’t totally happy with the feeling on the brakes, which resulted in me locking up before coming to turn 14 on the second to last lap. Then on my final timed lap, I was half a second quicker going into the last corner — but my steering wheel display said that I was two tenths slower. So I just took a big risk and spun because I mistakenly thought I had nothing to lose. However, fourth place is not a disaster.”
Starting from fifth will be Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, who was followed by the two Williams drivers, Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas.
“I’m happy with the fifth place. I’ll try to avoid battle at the beginning and have a clean first few laps. We were not too far from the podium for the first two races of the season. So tomorrow, the aim is to fight for a podium finish,” said Alonso.
The Spaniard is getting along well with the new team principal Marco Mattiacci. “He’s been listening a lot, making a lot of notes. We need to give him some time to close the gap between us and other teams.
“We know that Mercedes probably are out of reach in dry conditions but hopefully with Red Bull we are not too far. I don’t know if we can be faster than them or not but hopefully not 30 seconds behind them any more,” he added.
Alonso’s teammate Kimi Raikkonen had another disappointing weekend, the Finn failed to make it into Q3 and will start from 11th.
Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne and Romain Grosjean of Lotus took up the positions from eighth to tenth.
Neither McLaren cars managed to advance from Q2 for the first time this season. Jenson Button placed 12th, with Kevin Magnussen settling for 15th.
The circuit was hit by rain during the third practice session in the morning. All cars started Q1 on full-wet tires. With conditions improving coming into Q2, the drivers switched to intermediates. No rain is forecast for today’s race, the last one before the teams head to Europe.
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