It is a familiar 1-2 Mercedes front row at the 2019 Chinese Grand Prix as Valtteri Bottas fended off teammate Lewis Hamilton to grab pole position for tonight’s race in Shanghai.
Bottas beat Hamilton by a slim margin – just 0.023 seconds – to snag his first pole position of the year, while Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was third, just 0.301secs off the pace, and Vettel’s Ferrari teammate, Charles Leclerc was lurking in fourth, a mere 0.017secs further back.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly took fifth and sixth places, respectively, to finish out the cars that have a somewhat realistic chance of winning.
Bottas currently leads Hamilton in the 2019 Formula One driver’s championship by one point.