Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton grabbed pole in the Formula One Chinese Grand Prix Saturday.
The former McLaren man was almost 0.3 seconds quicker than the rest of the field as Mercedes flexed their muscles ahead of the race, with teammate Nico Rosberg set to line up fourth on the grid, behind Lotus' Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso of Ferrari.
Hamilton timed 1:34.484 for the fastest time in Q3, with Raikkonen to accompany the Brit in row one, having managed a time of 1:34.761.
Felipe Massa (Ferrari) and Romain Grosjean (Renault) will line up fifth and sixth while Red Bull's world champion Sebastian Vettel could only manage ninth. His teammate Mark Webber did not even make it to Q3, due to some fuel issues.
Webber stopped dead on the track, seemingly having run out of fuel in Q2, which led to him missing out on the top ten for the final qualifying session.
"We saw a big drop in collector pressure which either means there is not enough fuel in the car or there is a problem with the fuel pump," Red Bull team principal Christian Horner was quoted as saying by the BBC. "So there is either a problem with the car or the fuel 'bowser', which puts the fuel into the car."
Tyre is again expected to be the main issue, with the likes of Hamilton and Alonso expected to pit quite early, while Vettel and Button will have a longer time on the track, as they are on the medium tyres rather than the softs.
"Those on the option will have to stop relatively early," Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn said. "It will be a fascinating race."
Vettel and Button will have to use the soft tyres later on, however, so it will be interesting to see how much ground the two drivers are able to gain while on track in the early stages.
