Lewis Hamilton Grabs First Pole as Mercedes Driver

In a very exciting and tactical qualifying session, Lewis Hamilton proved his mastery of the Shanghai circuit with his third ever pole position in the race and his first pole with Mercedes. Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso will start second and third respectively.

Red Bull had a horrible qualifying session. Sebastian Vettel made it into the Q3 session but wanted to have a choice of tires for the race, so he went out and pitted on the same lap in the Q3 session. He will start ninth because Nico Hulkenberg opted for the same strategy of not setting a time. Mark Webber had an even worse afternoon when his car ran out of fuel while returning to the pits, and he was penalized to the back of the grid.

What qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix today showed is the problems with the Pirelli tires. The soft tires were only good for two fast laps before beginning to degrade. That forced the teams to limit their laps and save tires during qualifying. It is a travesty in what is supposed to be the world's premiere form of motorsport that teams are choosing not to qualify to save tires. It is not Pirelli's fault either. It is making the tire that the organizers have asked for.