Lewis Hamilton took his first pole position of the season in Shanghai, upping Kimi Raikkonen by 0.3 seconds.
Hamilton today earned his first pole position since leaving McLaren, where he had raced since 2007.
Hamilton said: "[It's an] incredible feeling, so happy to have our first pole for some time."
"I really hope we can carry that into tomorrow."
Mercedes' other driver, Nico Rosberg, took fourth, behind Ferrari's Fernando Alonso. Rosberg started in pole here last year, and went on to take his first, and so far only, victory.
"Very happy. The weekend has been very good for us. The car felt competitive from Friday." Said the Spaniard.
"The car is responding well and I think we have a good set-up for the race and if everything goes well we should be able to fight for the podium with both cars which is good for the team."
Sebastien Vettel will start in ninth position, as he did not set a time in Q3.
Mark Webber will start from the back of the grid after fuel pressure issues forced the Aussie to stop on track in Q2 - he did not have enough fuel to submit for sampling by the FIA, and has been relegated to P22. However, Webber has the option of altering his race setup, and starting from the pit lane. This could increase his chances of scoring points - teammate Vettel did this in Abu Dhabi last season. Red Bull stated that the No. 2 car had only 150ml of fuel left in it, 850ml short of the 1 litre sample requirement.
The team said that a problem with the fuel bowser, the piece of equipment used to input fuel to the car, "caused an incorrect fuel measurement to be delivered to Mark's car".
Franco-Swiss Lotus driver, Romain Grosjean, qualified sixth. Behind Grosjean sits Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian put his Toro Rosso around the circuit in a respectably fast 1:35.998, only 0.5 seconds behind the Lotus in front.
Jenson Button will start in eighth, in front of the No. 1 car of Vettel. Both the McLaren & Red Bull will start on medium tires, so should be able to last longer before their first stop than the other drivers - however Button & Vettel must use the soft compound tires at some point in the race.
"Obviously we are on a different strategy," Vettel explained to the BBC. "We will see whether it works tomorrow. But I am confident we did the right thing."
The two Force Indias of Paul di Resta & Adrian Sutil were not as quick as they were in
practice. They will start 11th and 13th respectively.
Read the Race Department
2013 Chinese Grand Prix preview article
here.
Look back on P1 & P2
here.
Follow the season on our
F1 Statistics page, for up-to-date standings & charts.
Full Qualifying Results
1
L HAMILTON
Mercedes
GBR
2
K RAIKKONEN
Lotus
FIN
3
F ALONSO
Ferrari
ESP
4
N ROSBERG
Mercedes
GER
5
F MASSA
Ferrari
BRA
6
R GROSJEAN
Lotus
SUI
7
D RICCIARDO
Toro Rosso
AUS
8
J BUTTON
McLaren
GBR
9
S VETTEL
Red Bull
GER
10
N HULKENBERG
Sauber
GER
11
P DI RESTA
Force India
GBR
12
S PEREZ
McLaren
MEX
13
A SUTIL
Force India
GER
14
M WEBBER
Red Bull
AUS
15
P MALDONADO
Williams
VEN
16
J E VERGNE
Toro Rosso
FRE
17
V BOTTAS
Williams
FIN
18
E GUTIERREZ
Sauber
MEX
19
J BIANCHI
Marussia
FRE
20
M CHILTON
Marussia
GBR
21
C PIC
Caterham
FRE
22
G VAN DER GARDE
Caterham
NLD
Image: Zimbio
