There really is no stopping Sebastian Vettel at the moment as the reigning World Champ claimed his third pole of the season in China.
Vettel will line up in P1 for tomorrow's Chinese Grand Prix, followed by McLaren's Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton with Nico Rosberg in fourth.
All the drama of the session occured in Q1 with Mark Webber going out and Q2 which eliminated Michael Schumacher and Nick Heidfeld and limited Vitaly Petrov's ambitions after he stopped out on track.
Qualifying 1
Although the track was at a higher temperature than Melbourne, 23C, the ambient was just 15C as qualifying got underway at The Shang circuit in Shanghai. Gone was the smog of Friday replaced in dim sunshine.
As Q1 approached there were 12 mechanics all over Mark Webber's Red Bull trying to get his KERS working properly after a problem in final practice.
Sergio Perez set the first lap time for his Sauber team with a 1:38.295 followed by 1:37.585 second time round to improve the P1 time. Right from the outset many of the teams went out on the harder Prime tyres fuelled for several laps. Jenson Button took over at the front with a 1:36.778 on the first of what would be three timed laps. Jaime Alguersuari had a brief spell on top showing the strength of the Toro Rosso this weekend.
Lewis Hamilton reset P1 at 1:36.091 on the second of his three timed laps which was then bettered by Button at 1:35.924 on the third of his three timed laps. Lewis would have gone faster still but ran into traffic. Sebastian Vettel then trumped them all on the final two of his three timed laps on the hard tyre, ending up with a 1:35.674.
Going into the final four minutes it was a case of the new teams in the bottom six positions, with the real danger zone of: 15.Sutil, 16.Barrichello 17.Maldonado, 18.Petrov.
Moments earlier Paul DiResta had jumped up from P17 to an incredible P2 and this was about to herald a series of incredible leaps up the grid as all of the mid-grid and some of the top teams realised they were going to have to use up a set of softer Option tyres.
Both Ferraris realised they needed to go onto soft tyres, as did Nico Rosberg. Fernando Alonso duly put his car into P1 with a 1:35.389 from P.13, and then Petrov went P1 from P18 with a 1:35.370. And if that wasn't enough Nico Rosberg was close to dropping out when he went P1 with a 1:35.277.
Petrov's escape from P18 had pushed Rubens Barrichello down into P18 with Michael Schumacher just below in P17. Rubens leapt forward to P8 which pushed the hard-tyre running Mark Webber into P16, with Maldonado in P17 and Schumi now in P18.
The bad news for the Red Bull team was that Mark Webber managed to improve his time, but not his place and he stayed P16. Michael was on the soft tyres and made his Mercedes safe in P5 pushing Maldonado into P18 and Webber into P17. The really bad news for the Australian was that Maldonado crossed the line and elevated his struggling Williams to P15, demoting the No.2 car to P18. And out.
So out went: 18.Webber, 19.Kovalainen, 20.Trulli, 21.D'Ambrosio, 22.Glock, 23.Liuzzi, 24.Karthikeyan. The good thing for the HRT team was that Karthikeyan was a full 1.5 seconds inside the 107% time of 1:41.941. With the top teams all wanting to conserve tyres for the race this season, the times that are achievable in Q1 will be lower benefiting the strugglers.
Biggest loser of them all was Mark Webber who had a car that should have been on the front row but would face a battle of the newbies at the start. Given his poor off-the-line form in Malaysia he might even find himself going into Turn 1 behind a couple of Lotus cars.
Qualifying 2
Q2 proved to be equally as dramatic as Q1. Alguersuari set the P1 time of 1:35.888 which was decimated by Jenson Button, now on the soft tyre, with a 1:34.662. Lewis Hamilton improved P1 to 1:34.486.
The Ferrari team, having used a set of soft tyres early put in banker laps on the old softs, saving up a new set for the dying moments. The Renault team, continuing the tradition they'd started with Robert Kubica, waited till the end of the session before running both cars. Because with three minutes to go, neither were yet on the timesheets.
The positions were: 6.DiResta, 7.Sutil, 8.Alguersuari, 9.Petrov, 10.Rosberg, 11.Barrichello, 12.Buemi, 13.Schumacher, 14.Kobayashi, 15.Maldonado, 16.Petrov, 17.Heidfeld.
Buemi jumped up to P5 and Petrov applied pressure to the Ferrari and Mercedes teams by sticking his car in P4 - with Heidfeld to come things were about to get very interesting. Until Petrov's car broke down on track and caused the session to be red-flagged.
This meant that all the cars out on track on their precious soft tyres had lost life from them. What was worse, with just 2:02 of the session left to run, it would be difficult for a stream of cars to get out of the pitlane on an outlap and get enough separation between them to qualify properly. Outlaps would have to be hurried and if the first of the cars in the queue brought out the yellow flags, that would be game over for everybody.
So when Race Control announced the time the session would be restarted there was a race to the end of the pitlane to get there first and be out on track first. Perez made it to the frontof the queue with Massa behind. When the session was restarted there was an almighty race which Massa won, overtaking the Sauber driver to be first on track in the final sprint.
Behind him, the cars that had been running hot in the pitlane - stationary for up to 90 seconds - and compromising their outlaps while trying to find a gap, poured across the line with Paul DiResta the last to make it across before the chequered flag.
It was a fairly traumatic lap for all concerned. Because of the less-than-ideal conditions, only Nico Rosberg made it out of the dropzone and into the top ten. Massa and Alonso were safe, but big casualties were Michael Schumacher and Nick Heidfeld who had cars quick enough for the top ten but didn't have the track time to prove it.
So out went: 11.Sutil, 12.Perez, 13.Kobayashi, 14.Schumacher, 15.Barrichello, 16.Heidfeld, 17.Maldonado
Considering Mercedes improved form in practice, Michael Schumacher will be unhappy to miss out on the chance of a top six start, while Nick Heidfeld was the victim of his own team's lack of reliability. It was a great result for Paul DiResta, because with Petrov stopping on track and so automatically getting the P10 spot, he would qualify 9th or better and make it three out of three qualifying in front of Adrian Sutil.
Qualifying 3
Although the cooler conditions in China will mean far less race wear than Malaysia, Lewis Hamilton was not keen to waste a set of tyres in Q3 and so it was only Vettel versus Button in the first round of Q3. All the other cars stayed in the garage to watch Sebastian Vettel easily outqualify Jenson Button with a 1:33.706 compared to the Mclaren's 1:34.421.
The single lap runners then came out and it was Fernando Alonso who took P3, Nico Rosberg who took it off him and then Lewis Hamilton could only go P3 on his single run. With Vettel and Button following behind, and the McLaren team realising that Button was not going to make up the 0.7 difference to Vettel, both drivers aborted their second runs and came back into the pits.
Felipe Massa was faster than Alonso in the first sector but lost out over the course of a lap to finish in P6 behind Alonso and Rosberg. Paul Di Resta managed to split the Toro Rossos of Alguersuari (P7) and Buemi (P9) for his best ever F1 qualifying position.
It was a hattrick of pole positions in 2011 for Vettel and a hattrick of China GP pole positions for him in the last three years. Ferrari will be more than satisfied with their qualifying because they might have been behind both Renaults, both Red Bulls and maybe even both Mercedes. Mercedes will also be very encouraged to see Nico Rosberg on the second row.
As it is, we have a race situation where Messrs Webber, Schumacher, Heidfeld and Petrov are all out of position, which should make for an exhilarating opening stint. Given Petrov and Heidfeld's starts, it could be an interesting opening lap if their Pirellis work off the line.
Red Bull's gap at the front seems to show that they have an advantage in cool conditions, just as they did in Australia, but whether that ability to heat the tyres up will count against them in the race remains to be seen.
FH
Times
01. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 01:33.706 14 laps
02. Jenson Button McLaren 01:34.421 13 laps
03. Lewis Hamilton McLaren 01:34.463 11 laps
04. Nico Rosberg Mercedes GP 01:34.670 19 laps
05. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 01:35.119 18 laps
06. Felipe Massa Ferrari 01:35.145 18 laps
07. Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso 01:36.158 18 laps
08. Paul di Resta Force India 01:36.190 17 laps
09. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso 01:36.203 16 laps
10. Vitaly Petrov Renault no time 11 laps
11. Adrian Sutil Force India 01:35.874 14 laps
12. Sergio Perez Sauber 01:36.053 16 laps
13. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber 01:36.236 11 laps
14. Michael Schumacher Mercedes GP 01:36.457 16 laps
15. Rubens Barrichello Williams 01:36.465 15 laps
16. Nick Heidfeld Renault 01:36.611 11 laps
17. Pastor Maldonado Williams 01:36.956 17 laps
18. Mark Webber Red Bull 01:36.468 8 laps
19. Heikki Kovalainen Team Lotus 01:37.894 7 laps
20. Jarno Trulli Team Lotus 01:38.318 10 laps
21. Jerome d' Ambrosio Virgin Racing 01:39.119 8 laps
22. Timo Glock Virgin Racing 01:39.708 8 laps
23. Vitantonio Liuzzi HRT F1 Team 01:40.212 9 laps
24. Narain Karthikeyan HRT F1 Team 01:40.445 9 laps
