SEBASTIAN VETTEL stormed to pole position for the Chinese Grand Prix after Lewis Hamilton’s challenge quickly faded.
The Ferrari ace put in a sensational flying lap at the death to beat his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen to the front spot.
But even more impressive than Vettel’s lap was the huge advantage Ferrari had over Mercedes – and that will have the Brackley-based team reeling.
The Ferraris had an incredible 0.5second advantage over the Merc’s – a track they have dominated at for five of the past six years.
Vettel said: “I was happy with the whole lap, the car was amazing and kept getting better. It was great qualifying, a great car, I really enjoyed that one.”
Until then, it was Raikkonen who looked most likely to take pole, but he had to settle for second meaning it was a Ferrari 1-2 in back-to-back races for the first time since 2006.
Meanwhile, Hamilton looked uncharacteristically rattled – his final lap was scruffy and he then made a mistake at the penultimate corner before aborting his last lap.
Valtteri Bottas was third while Hamilton could only qualifying in fourth place – with Mercedes boss Toto Wolff admitting they have “something to think about”.
Meanwhile, the Red Bull duo complete the top six on the grid – largely thanks to Daniel Ricciardo’s mechanics who beat the clock to change his engine with just seconds to spare.
But there was more disappointment for McLaren as both cars failed to make it into Q3 and Williams never got out of Q1.
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