Lewis Hamilton claimed a sixth consecutive pole position in another tight battle between Mercedes and Ferrari, with Sebastian Vettel edging Valtteri Bottas to the second spot on the front row by 0.001s.
Ferrari had looked strong all day in China, going one-two in FP3 and again in Q2, but Hamilton continually improved over the course of the day and crossed in a 1:31.678. That was 0.186s better than Vettel's time, but the Ferrari driver's attention had turned to beating Bottas in the closing moments of Q3 -- something he did by a fraction of a second.
Kimi Raikkonen settled for fourth,0.