China: Qualifications Viewed from the Stands

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton – Pole Position

Nico Rosberg – 4th

Toto Wolff, Executive Director: « Another rainy qualifying session that didn’t make life easy for us. We looked very strong at the beginning on extreme wet tires, but the pack caught up when we switched to intermediates. It was an exceptional performance from Lewis; he was on another planet today. Nico was present and very competitive, but unfortunately, he couldn’t get a clear lap on his last stint, which cost him dearly in these tough conditions. It shows our competitiveness at the moment, as we had the pace to have both cars on the front row. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Red Bull

Daniel Ricciardo – 2nd

Sebastian Vettel – 3rd

Christian Horner, Team Principal: « A great job from our guys in these tricky conditions to split the Mercedes. Daniel and Sebastian made good progress during the two sessions to be in good shape for Q3. We knew that the third sector would always be our Achilles’ heel here and once again, it was proven: our top speed wasn’t enough compared to the Mercedes.

Nevertheless, it’s a brilliant performance from Dan to qualify on the front row. Sebastian didn’t have a clear lap in Q3, but both our cars have good positions for tomorrow’s race with 2nd and 3rd on the grid.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Ferrari

Fernando Alonso – 5th

Kimi Räikkönen – 11th

Pat Fry, Chassis Director: « Today’s weather forecasts proved to be accurate, with light but persistent rain significantly disrupting both sessions. In the morning, we decided to run as little as possible in order to conserve the wet tires for qualifying and the race. Unfortunately, Kimi did not make it past Q2. Yesterday, he missed the first free practice session, and today he was struggling with the car’s balance, especially in the slow corners.

On Fernando’s side, he managed to get through all three parts of the qualifying sessions without any particular problems, and the fifth place on the grid tomorrow means he can be in the leading group. With him, we will try to take advantage of all attacking opportunities, while with Kimi, we will try to have him move up and score as many points as he can. In both cases, the first two laps will be crucial.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Williams

Felipe Massa – 6th

Valtteri Bottas – 7th

Rob Smedley, Director of Car Performance: « Sessions like these are never easy, but I’m once again impressed by our performance today. Not being penalized by qualifying in wet conditions shows that the work done has improved the car’s balance. The race engineers have performed admirably and the mechanics did a very good job in difficult conditions, which is good to see. The drivers also did a fantastic job today, so overall I am happy. We still have work to do on the car in terms of performance, but it’s good to see progress. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Force India

Nico Hülkenberg – 8th

Sergio Pérez – 16th

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal: « Wet weather is a recurring theme on Saturdays with three out of four qualifying sessions already taking place in the wet since the start of the season. We were hoping the rain would be favorable to us, but both cars struggled with braking and we never really found the pace in these conditions. So from that perspective, it was a disrupted session, and Nico did well to make it to Q3 to qualify in P8.

Sergio wasn’t comfortable with the balance of his car all weekend, and the wet conditions made things even more difficult. Tomorrow, I think we can be strong in race conditions and we’ll aim for points, but the battle for the top 10 will be particularly fierce here.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Toro Rosso

Jean-Eric Vergne – 9th

Daniil Kvyat – 13th

James Key, Technical Director: The conditions for this qualifying session were clear but completely unpredictable. It seems there was a micro-climate around the circuit, so it was difficult to tell what was happening here. We had a plan that remained flexible, and in the end, it helped us deal well with these tricky conditions, and the guys on the pit wall did a very good job. Q1 went as we hoped, even though we took a small gamble by starting with used intermediate tires. Jean-Eric Vergne did a great job reaching Q3, given the tight battle in difficult conditions.

Unfortunately, Daniel was not able to reach Q3, which is disappointing given the good pace he had shown so far. We still need to analyze the reasons for this, but the 13th position remains a good place to start the race. Assuming the weather stays dry tomorrow, we should be able to have a solid race given that we are more competitive in the dry than on a wet track.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Lotus

Romain Grosjean – 10th

Pastor Maldonado – No time [22nd on the grid]

Alan Permane, Track Operations Director of Lotus: It was a bittersweet qualifying session. Obviously, we are sorry not to see Pastor participate and we feel for him and his team. The engine had a leak this morning in FP3 and we had to change it, but it was impossible to do so before the start of qualifying.

For Romain, it was a good day – he was very fast in FP3 and even though qualifying wasn’t as good as the morning session, it was positive to make it to Q3. I think we were hoping for a bit better, so we just need to understand where we missed something. Overall, it’s nice to have the car back where it should be. I think we can be confident in scoring good points tomorrow.

– Read the drivers’ statements

McLaren

Jenson Button – 12th

Kevin Magnussen – 15th

Eric Boullier, Competition Director: « To put it simply, we were bad in qualifying today. We know that the car lacks overall performance, particularly it lacks downforce. This is always a real problem in any conditions, of course, but it becomes an insurmountable handicap when it is both cold and wet as it was today.

Then, it’s a vicious circle because you can’t heat the tires and that’s what we saw today. Our drivers did their best but actually, it was an impossible task. That being said, both Jenson and Kevin will give their all tomorrow to score as many points as possible.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Sauber

Adrian Sutil – 14th

Esteban Gutierrez – 17th

Monisha Kaltenborn, Sauber team principal: « The qualifying showed that the technical developments brought for this race have had a positive effect and are pointing in the right direction. This was mainly reflected in Adrian’s result.

Esteban suffered from a technical problem that prevented him from getting through Q1. Nevertheless, we managed to reduce the gap between us and our direct competitors. This gives us confidence for the upcoming races, where we will introduce new development elements.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Caterham

Kamui Kobayashi – 18th

Marcus Ericsson – 20th

Cedrik Staudohar, Head of Logistics Support at Renault Sport F1: « Throughout the day, we had some issues with the ERS-K on Marcus’s car due to gearbox control problems, but we feel we extracted the maximum performance from the power unit during this session.

The two drivers were able to use maximum power and energy recovery, but the conditions were very difficult. Nevertheless, we are ahead of the two Marussias and believe that we are well prepared to fight with them, and the other cars ahead of us, during the race tomorrow.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Marussia

Jules Bianchi – 19th

Max Chilton – 21st

John Booth, Team Director: « The two sessions were mixed for the drivers, with Max being happy with his performance in FP3 and Jules in qualifying. Jules was trying an experimental setup for FP3 and unfortunately, it didn’t work particularly well in the wet. Max stuck to a more conventional setup compared to FP2, he was happy and had a very good lap on the first stint on intermediates in FP3.

After the break, it was clear that we had to change Jules’ settings to revert to his FP2 configuration, which was quite a task for the mechanics, but they worked well to get the car ready in time for qualifying. The decision on tire choice at the start of qualifying was tricky, as the track seemed precisely midway between intermediates and wet tires. In the end, we stopped to fit the intermediates and, while Jules was losing time on his lap unable to beat Kobayashi, Max was struggling with the balance of his car. We will look into what happened.

– Read the drivers’ statements