Hamiliton Gets POLE for chineese GP
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Lewis Hamilton put himself in the best possible position to clinch the world championship in China with a stunning pole-winning lap in qualifying on Saturday.
Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen had dominated the weekend until Q3, topping the times in every session, while Hamilton looked the least likely of the top four drivers to take pole.
But the 22-year-old Briton has shown many times this year that he relishes a challenge, and produced a picture-perfect lap seemingly out of nowhere to confound the Ferrari camp.
Even better news from his point of view was the fact that his main title rival, McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso, could manage only the fourth fastest time.
Hamilton’s performance brings the title within tantalising reach; if he finishes ahead of Alonso on Sunday, and in the top five, he will be champion in his rookie season.
Raikkonen was in commanding form in the first two sessions, setting the fastest time by 0.1s in Q1 and extending his advantage to 0.4s in Q2.
Hamilton was the first to post a quick lap in the top-10 shootout, using the harder compound tyres to set a 1m36.610s.
But the lap looked a little untidy in places, the back end of the MP4-22 refusing to stay in line on some of the trickier direction changes.
It was good enough to fend off Alonso’s first effort, a 1m36.754s, before Raikkonen demoted both McLarens with a 1m36.548s and then Felipe Massa upped the ante to 1m36.221s.
It seemed Hamilton would have his work cut out keeping Alonso behind him on his final run rather than being able to challenge the Ferraris – but Lewis had other ideas.
After making a front wing adjustment and taking on a new set of soft Bridgestones, he rejoined the fray, taking great care to bring his tyres gently up to temperature on his warm-up lap.
The preparation paid off handsomely; when he embarked on his hot lap the tyres were giving plenty of grip and they hung on for the whole 3.4 miles.
The lap itself was a stupendous blend of aggression and control, kissing every apex absolutely spot-on and avoiding the momentum-sapping slides that had compromised his first run.
The resulting time of 1m35.908s proved too good for his rivals, Raikkonen coming up 0.136s short and Massa failing to improve on his earlier benchmark.
Alonso, meanwhile, trailed Hamilton by a full two-thirds of a second.
David Coulthard produced his best qualifying performance in recent memory to claim fifth on the grid for Red Bull, having looked superbly confident and hooked-up throughout the hour.
Team-mate Mark Webber, who is renowned for his qualifying speed, also showed well but trailed DC by more than half a second in seventh place.
The Red Bulls were split by an on-form Ralf Schumacher, who outqualified his team-mate Jarno Trulli by seven places less than a week after announcing that he will part company with Toyota at the end of the season.
The BMWs were shuffled down from their customary third-row starting berths to eighth and ninth, Nick Heidfeld shading Robert Kubica, while Jenson Button will start 10th after a fine effort for Honda.
Toro Rosso twins Tonio Liuzzi and Sebastian Vettel again performed strongly, annexing the sixth row.
But it was a disastrous day for Renault, neither of whose drivers made it into Q3.
Heikki Kovalainen apologised to his team after ruining his lap on the final corner, while Giancarlo Fisichella was eliminated at the first knock-out stage.
Revised Chinese Grand Prix starting grid
1. HAMILTON McLaren
2. RAIKKONEN Ferrari
3. MASSA Ferrari
4. ALONSO McLaren
5. COULTHARD Red Bull
6. SCHUMACHER Toyota
7. WEBBER Red Bull
8. HEIDFELD BMW
9. KUBICA BMW
10. BUTTON Honda
11. LIUZZI Toro Rosso
12. TRULLI Toyota
13. KOVALAINEN Renault
14. DAVIDSON Super Aguri
15. ROSBERG Williams
16. BARRICHELLO Honda
17. VETTEL Toro Rosso
18. FISICHELLA Renault
19. WURZ Williams
20. SATO Super Aguri
21. SUTIL Spyker
22. YAMAMOTO Spyker
