Vettel shocked by the large gap to Mercedes

Malaysian GP winner Sebastian Vettel knew that the Shanghai circuit would favour the Mercedes-branded cars, but he hoped to be closer to them. However, the German delivered when it mattered and took third place in qualifying.

The quadruple- champion admitted that Ferrari were prepared to be defeated by a significant margin, but they were happy to be Mercedes’ nearest rival again.

"I think we knew it would be tough in qualifying to be really close," he said. "Q1 and especially Q2 look promising. In Q3 it was a bit more like what we saw in practice, so quite a large gap for us. But we're fairly happy to make sure we are right behind them.”

Sebastian is adamant to reduce the gap in tomorrow’s race, but he is unsure whether Ferrari can challenge the seemingly dominant Mercedes.

"Obviously we want to close the gap, and maybe tomorrow we will be closer, but for now we are reasonably happy.”

"It's a bit of a shame not to get both cars on the second row, I think as I was told, Kimi got a bit unlucky on [his] warm up lap. But in tomorrow's race, we should have the pace. We will see what we can do."