Chinese Grand Prix qualifying: Hamilton takes pole; Bottas in third
Ryan Joseph Ramos April 8, 2017Lewis Hamilton made the most of the dry track at the Chinese Grand Prix on Saturday, taking pole position to fend off Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel. Valtteri Bottas took the other Mercedes car to P3.
It sure looks like Hamilton and Vettel will be the duel to watch this season, with Vettel taking first blood when he won the opener at Australia a couple of weeks ago.
With his sixth straight pole position, Hamilton is closing in fast on the all-time leaders. His 63 career poles is just 2 behind Ayrton Senna for second place. Meanwhile, he needs only 6 more to surpass Michael Schumacher for the all-time best mark. On his way to pole, Hamilton recorded the fastest lap in Shanghai, at 1:31.678.
The weather marred the first day of practice, with FP2 getting canceled entirely. For race day, it is still forecast to rain, so we could be looking at a wet start. “If it is, tomorrow could be one of the most exciting days we’ve all had for a long time,” said Hamilton.
Hamilton added that fighting this closely versus Ferrari is “what this sport should be all about.” True enough, while last year’s battle with teammate and eventual champion Nico Rosberg was great, it’s still so much more exciting when rivals from different teams duke it out on the track.
It was really close between Vettel and Bottas, however. the Ferrari clocked 1:31.864, while Bottas was at 1:31.865. They were separated by a mere 1/1000th of a second.
Here’s hoping we see the same intense action on race day. Hamilton is itching to get back on top, while Vettel will surely do his best to prove his win was not a fluke. Plus, with the prospect of rain, it should be really exciting overall. Check back here when we recap the results of the 2017 Chinese Grand Prix!
PROVISIONAL CLASSIFICATION (END OF QUALIFYING)
6th pole in a row for HAM ?
One THOUSANDTH between VET (P2) and BOT (P3) ?#ChineseGP ?? pic.twitter.com/EvtOFEABwA
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 8, 2017
