With Mercedes taking their first front-row lockout of the season and Ricciardo scoring a second top-three start of the year, fourth place went to Williams’ Valtteri Bottas. Thanks to Ricciardo’s penalty, however, Bottas will start a grand prix from the from the front of row two for the second time in his career. He started last year’s Canadian GP from third. He’ll be joined on row two by Force India’s Sergio Perez, the Mexican enjoy his best outing of the season so far to qualify fifth.
Sixth in the session was Kimi Raikkonen, the Finn eclipsing team-mate Fernando Alonso for the first time this season. The Spaniard could only manage 10th. Seventh place in the session went to McLaren’s Jenson Button, with Felipe Massa eighth for Williams and Kevin Magnussen ninth in the second McLaren. All will move forward one place on the grid due to Ricciardo’s penalty.
Earlier, Q1 had begun in predictable fashion, with most completing their initial runs on the medium compound tyres. As the final minutes approached, however, the Sauber pairing of Esteban Gutierrez and Adrian Sutil bolted on soft tyres, and with previous sessions showing a two-second performance gap between the compounds, the pair rocketed up the order, Gutierrez taking third and Sutil settling into sixth place. That meant a switch to softs for the whole field bar the Mercedes drivers, who remained in the garage, confident their medium tyre times would see them through. Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo too stuck with the mediums and went through in 14th place. At the top of the Q1 timesheet was Nico Hulkenberg, followed by Valtteri Bottas and with Sergio Perez third. Hamilton eased through in eighth place, with Rosberg 10th just ahead of world champion Sebastian Vettel. Eliminated were the two cars of Marussia and Caterham, joined by Pastor Maldonado and Adrian Sutil.
Q2 saw similar drama late on as Sebastian Vettel found himself in the drop zone with a few minutes left. He took to the circuit on the soft tyres and set about trying to muscle his way through to the upper orders. However, his lap only yielded P8 and with plenty of time on the clock it wasn’t long before the defending champion was sliding down the order. Kimi Raikkonen bumped him down to ninth and as others posted their best times Vettel slipped out to 11th. At the head of the Q2 timesheet were Rosbreg and Hamilton, followed by Ricciardo, Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso.
P. DRIVER TEAM TIME GAP
1. Nico Rosberg Mercedes AMG 1:33.185
2. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes AMG 1:33.464 + 0.279
3. Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:34.051 + 0.866
4. Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:34.247 + 1.062
5. Sergio Perez Force India 1:34.346 + 1.161
6. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:34.368 + 1.183
7. Jenson Button McLaren 1:34.387 + 1.202
8. Felipe Massa Williams 1:34.511 + 1.326
9. Kevin Magnussen McLaren 1:34.712 + 1.527
10. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:34.992 + 1.807
Q2 Fastest time: Nico Rosberg 1:33.708
11. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 1:34.985 + 1.277
12. Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:35.116 + 1.408
13. Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:35.145 + 1.437
14. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:35.286 + 1.578
15. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 1:35.891 + 2.183
16. Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:35.908 + 2.200
Q1 Fastest time: Nico Hulkenberg 1:34.874
17. Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:36.663 + 1.789
18. Adrian Sutil Sauber 1:36.840 + 1.966
19. Kamui Kobayashi Caterham 1:37.085 + 2.211
20. Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:37.310 + 2.436
21. Marcus Ericsson Caterham 1:37.875 + 3.001
22. Max Chilton Marussia 1:37.913 + 3.039
107% time: 1:41.515
