Hamilton Gets the First Pole for Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton secured his first pole position for Mercedes as Red Bull struggled in qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix.

Q1 and there was no movement on track until Marussia's Jules Bianchi fired up his engine and decided to take advantage of a clear track.

Once Bianchi took to the track, it seemed to have broken the spell as teammate Max Chilton and Toro Rosso's Daniel Ricciardo followed.

As most fans know, Formula One is not the most 'economical' sport. Whether you are just going to watch or if you are a team participating. But for the smaller teams, the quicker you can get out onto track and get television time for the sponsors, the better. Because it is well know that the moment that one of the top 5 team's drivers get on track, it will be like the back teams are nearly invisible. What a lot of TV viewers do not see is the battles that happen at the back of the grid. The can be as spectacular as the ones at the front.

Point proven as three minutes later, Mercedes Lewis Hamilton emerges on track followed by teammate Nico Rosberg.

Until late improvements by the Toro Rossos, it seemed that Jules Bianchi was going to make Q2 for Marussia, but Vergne’s and Ricciardo’s final laps (as well as similar improvements for Bottas and Gutierrez) left the knockout order as follows:  Esteban Gutierrez, Jules Bianchi, Max Chilton, Charles Pic and Giedo van der Garde.

Q2 and it seemed that Red Bull wanted to prove themselves. With whispers that the team would be facing a challenge with the cars in China this week, the Red Bull teammates were the first on track.

Qualifying continued as normal and when the timer ticked below six minutes, all eyes turned to the Red Bull sitting on the side of the track. Mark Webber stopped his car just shy of the pit lane entrance. It wasn't until after the race that the news broke and that Webber had run out of fuel and was handed a DSQ.

Webber had put in a lap on used tyres at the start of Q2 when he appeared to run out of fuel on his in lap and had to park his car on the inside of the hairpin, just yards from the pit entry. As the times tumbled later in the session, Webber was pushed down to 14th as an excellent lap from Ricciardo put him through. Paul di Resta dropped out in 11th by just 0.026s ahead of Sergio Perez, Adrian Sutil, Webber, Pastor Maldonado and Jean-Eric Vergne.

Raikkonen will line up second ahead of Fernando Alonso and Nico Rosberg (after a slow final sector cost Rosberg a place on the front row). Felipe Massa will be fifth ahead of Romain Grosjean, while Daniel Ricciardo is seventh after a brilliant Q2 performance. Jenson Button will start ahead of Vettel as he slowly crossed the finish line to ensure he set a time (although half a minute off the pace).

Lewis Hamilton	P1
Kimi Räikkönen	P2
Fernando Alonso	P3
Nico Rosberg	P4
Felipe Massa	P5
Romain Grosjean	P6
Daniel Ricciardo	P7
Jenson Button	P8
Sebastian Vettel	P9
Nico Hulkenberg	P10
Paul di Resta	P11
Sergio Perez	P12
Adrian Sutil	P13
Pastor Maldonado	P14
Jean-Éric Vergne	P15
Valtteri Bottas	P16
Estaban Gutiérrez	P17
Jules Bianchi	P18
Max Chilton	P19
Charles Pic	P20
Giedo van der Garde	P21
Mark Webber	DSQ

Q1 107% Time 1:42.498

Note - Webber originally qualified 14th but moved to the back of the grid for failing to provide a one-litre fuel sample after qualifying