Hamilton takes easy Chinese pole

F1 Grand Prix, GP China, Shanghai International Ciruit

Lewis Hamilton is moving closer and closer to a stunt in Formula One history as he put his McLaren on pole position for the Chinese Grand Prix. He is closely followed by Kimi Raikkonen who is ahead of Massa and Alonso. David Coulthard is a surprise 5th and confirms the uprise of Red Bull.

Contrary to last week at Fuji, this qualifying is expected to remain dry.

Prior to the session, Ferrari have worked on Kimi's engine after it apparently suffered some hydraulic problems during the third practice session. The team had taken out the engine and reinstalled it to avoid a ten place grid penalty.

The first session again comes with a few surprises in the back of the field. After a string of quick laps just ahead of the checkered flag, Barrichello is knocked out, together with Fisichella, Wurz, Sato, Sutil and Yamamoto. Anthony Davidson therefore makes it a habit of being faster than his teammate Sato. Renault and Spyker on the other hand appear far less competitive than last weekend and may be running a car setup for wet conditions in the light of weather provisions for tomorrow's race.

The second session again proves tense at the front of the field. The 4 fastest drivers are once more within a couple of tenths of a second. Both BMW Sauber cars also have no trouble to move through and are joined by the Red Bulls where Coulthard beat his teammate Webber. Ralf Schumacher and Button are also in and relagates Liuzzi, Vettel, Trulli, Kovalainen, Davidson and Rosberg to the knockout zone. Rosberg's performance also indicates that Williams are far from their regular pace and may also have compromised their setup for dry weather.

After burning away some fuel, the first string of laps in Q3 sets Massa ahead of everyone with a clear 0.3s margin. Massa was however the only one to run the option tyre at that time. For their second attempts of course all go out on the soft compound as they are clearly faster on a single lap.

Hamilton finally masters his run on the soft compound best and puts his McLaren on pole position, ahead of Raikkonen and Massa. Fernando Alonso appeared baffled as he was even unable to improve his time despite having a faster tyre.