Sebastian Vettel takes third pole position in a row

Sebastian Vettel was once again the fastest driver on qualifying to take the pole position for tomorrow's Chinese Grand Prix, his third-in-a-row this season. The German made an incredible lap in the beginning of Q3 at 1.33.706, which remained unbeaten until the end of the session.

Once again Vettel was followed closely by the McLarens, this time he will be joined in the first line of the grid by Jenson Button, as Hamilton failed on his only lap on Q3 to do better than his team-mate, finishing third.

Nico Rosberg improved on his team performance today as he managed to take his W02 up to the second row, although he suffered until the last instant to qualify to Q3. He managed to get ahead of both the Ferraris who were clearly off the pace of the front runners today with Alonso taking fifth and Massa sixth.

For the first time since the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix the two Toro Rossos managed to qualify for the Q3. Jaime Alguersuari finished seventh and 9th respectively sandwiching rookie Paul di Resta who continues his amazing debut on F1.

Vitaly Petrov closed the top ten on the qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix. The Russian didn't even get the chance to make an attempt on Q3 as his stopped in the middle of the track, supposedly with hydraulic issues.

Because of the red flags period, there were only 2 minutes left in Q2 and a sort of a mini race took place. With nine cars going to the track at the same time and all of them eager to improve on their time or make a first attempt, like Nico Rosberg, a traffic cue at the exit of the pitstops was created with Peréz leading the pack in his Sauber.

When the green lights went on everyone got out and tried to get the best position to make a quick lap and still manage to go through Q3. Massa overtook Peréz and was ahead of everyone, managing to make the fourth fastest lap in Q2.

Mark Webber continued his somehow disappointing start of the season. He was once again slower than his team-mate Vettel but in addition to that he didn't even make it to Q2. After having his car repaired from problems during the morning, Webber was able to run the qualifying but he seemed to be without KERS. He was then kept on the harder tyres at the end of Q1 while everyone changed to the softer ones at the end of Q1. On their last attempts Michael Schumacher and Pastor Maldonado threw Webber to 18th position and out of Q2.