QUALIFYING REPORT
And it was Red Bull who
managed to get one of its drivers
to the head of the queue at the pit
lane exit.
Daniel Ricciardo was first
out on track as the lights went
green and in a frantic end to the
session the Australian capitalised,
climbing for the P7 yielded by an
untidy first flyer to P3 with a big
lap under massive pressure.
Behind him on track was
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and
though the four-time champion
set an identical time to Ricciardo,
1:43.966, the Australian’s track
position handed him P3.
Ricciardo would rise to the
front row of the grid for the race
race too, as second-placed
qualifier Sergio Pérez faced a
five-place grid drop due to a
crash late in FP3 necessitating an
unscheduled gearbox change on
his Force India car.
Afterwards, Rosberg
expressed delight at the result: “It
was one of the more challenging
sessions out there, but everything
worked out well. There was a
bit of reorganizing because for
example in Quali 3 Lewis had an
off in front of me, so I had to abort
that lap and then I just had one
more attempt at the end, but that
worked out fine. No, I’m very, very
happy. It was great.”