Qualification: New double for Red Bull, Alonso third

Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull takes his third pole position in four races this season with a magnificent lap at the end of qualifying in Shanghai. The German brought his teammate with him, resulting in a 100% Red Bull front row. The team continues its momentum, as this marks their fourth consecutive pole position, accounting for all race starts this season. Mark Webber is therefore second, 0.248 seconds behind.

Vettel held the provisional pole on his first run, but was pipped by Webber on his second attempt in Q3. There was nothing between them in the first two sectors of their final lap, but Vettel gave it his all in the third sector. Fernando Alonso ranks third for Ferrari, four places ahead of his teammate Felipe Massa, who was pushed back by 0.2 seconds.

Q3 brought its share of disappointment for Lewis Hamilton. The fastest in Q1 and Q2, he didn’t have a chance against the pole. He will start the race in sixth position, behind Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes and his teammate Jenson Button.

Michael Schumacher is once again quite far behind in ninth position at the wheel of the second Mercedes, between Robert Kubica’s Renault and Adrian Sutil’s Force India. Rubens Barrichello for Williams nearly qualified for Q3, but eventually slipped to 11th place when Sutil completed his last lap a few seconds later. While Barrichello was 0.033 seconds away from beating Schumacher for the last spot in Q3, his teammate Nico Hülkenberg is only 16th, between the Saubers of Kamui Kobayashi and Pedro de la Rosa.

The Toro Rosso cars are well ranked as Jaime Alguersuari is ahead of his teammate Sebastien Buemi, but more importantly equals his best career result with 12th place. Tonio Liuzzi is out by 0.111 seconds from qualifying in Q2. His Force India finished 18th on the grid, held back by traffic.

After his morning accident, it seemed quite difficult for Vitaly Petrov to perform well among the new teams, but once his Renault was repaired, the Russian easily qualified for Q2 and took 14th place.

Lotus seemed poised to win the battle of the new teams until the last lap, but Timo Glock with Virgin takes the lead of this pack by 0.117 seconds over Jarno Trulli’s Lotus. Heikki Kovalainen narrowly avoided a spin at the braking of turn 6 and qualifies in 21st position with the second Lotus. The Hispania team is at the back of the grid.

Results of the Qualifications – Chinese GP – Saturday, April 17, 2010: