Qualifying for Sunday’s 56-lap Chinese Grand Prix proved a thrilling affair with the provisional pole position changing hands numerous times before Sebastian Vettel flashed across the line to claim his second career pole and the first for the Red Bull Renault team.While Vettel celebrates his success, Fernando Alonso will be thrilled to line up second after the Renault team worked late into the night fitting a new aerodynamic package to the R29 challenger. The double world champion duly rewarded the hard-working Enstone crew with a front-row start, two-tenths shy of Vettel.
Mark Webber ran well throughout qualifying and lines up third in the second Red Bull Renault while Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button line up fourth and fifth for Brawn Mercedes. The result is not what Button would have hoped for as he was chasing his third straight pole, but we do not yet know what fuel levels the fastest three runners opted to run in qualifying.
It was a fairly mixed day for the Toyota team with Jarno Trulli having a relatively routine run to sixth position on the grid while team-mate Timo Glock suffered a gearbox failure in practice and then was just 14th fastest when it counted. With a five position grid position penalty for the unscheduled gearbox change, Glock lines up at the back between the Force India duo.
Nico Rosberg topped the timesheets in practice but will be slightly disappointed to line up seventh in the leading Williams Toyota. Team-mate Kazuki Nakajima failed to shine again in qualifying and was 15th fastest of the 15 runners to make it into the second round of qualifying.
The Ferrari looks a real handful to drive in Shanghai this weekend, but stripped of KERS Kimi Raikkonen at least managed to qualify eighth but there was further qualifying disappointment for Felipe Massa down in 13th position following a small error on his critical lap.
Defending champion and 2008 race winner Lewis Hamilton qualified ninth in his modified McLaren Mercedes while Heikki Kovalainen was unfortunate to find traffic on his final qualifying run and was just 12th ahead of Massa, Glock and Nakajima.
While Vettel grabs all the headlines, one additional stand out performance was from Swiss Rookie Sebastien Buemi who qualified tenth in his Toro Rosso Ferrari. Given his more experienced team-mate Sebastien Bourdais failed to make it out of the first round of qualifying, it was a great effort from Buemi to qualify tenth.
Nick Heidfeld led the BMW Sauber charge today with the 11th fastest time but it was fundamentally a disappointing session for the team. Robert Kubica failed at the first hurdle and Heidfeld only just scraping into the second round of qualifying.
The team opted to run the harder prime tyre for the first run before switching to the softer option late in the first round of qualifying. Heidfeld managed a better lap but Kubica is left a very disappointed 18th on the grid ahead of only the Force India Mercedes duo of Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella and behind Bourdais and Nelson Piquet in the second Renault.
Congratulations to Vettel and Red Bull but we will get a clearer picture of what to expect on race day when the FIA publish the qualifying weights.
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