QUALIFYING REPORT
With the track drying at a rapid
rate, after that it was all about
timing – attempting to get across the
start/finish line at the last possible
moment.
And it was the Mercedes drivers
who judged it best. As everyone
found improvements, Hamilton found
the conditions suiting him best and
with purple times in each sector he
vaulted to the top of the timesheet
with a lap of 1:07.922.
Rosberg finished second, half
a second off his team-mate, while
Hulkenberg continued to pound
around to post a final time of 1:09.285
that was good enough for third.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was
fourth ahead of McLaren’s Jenson
Button, with Kimi Raikkonen sixth
followed by Red Bull’s Daniel
Ricciardo, Williams’ Valtteri Bottas,
the Red Bull of Max Verstappen and
the Williams of Felipe Massa. The
chance nature of the session was
illustrated, however, by a four-second
spread from Hamilton’s P1 lap to
Massa’s P10 time of 1:11.977.
The top 10 grid order would
change though, with second-placed
Rosberg and fourth-placed Vettel
due to take five-place penalties for
the race owing to gearbox changes –
Vettel’s as a precautionary measure
and Rosberg’s due to an FP3 crash
in which his rear suspension broke
while running over kerbs at Turn 2.