Chinese F1 Grand Prix 2019 Qualifying: Saturday's Results, Times, Final Grid

Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas will start the 2019 Chinese Formula One Grand Prix from pole position at the Shanghai International Circuit on Sunday.

He went fastest in Saturday's qualifying with a time of one minute, 31.537 seconds, just 0.023 seconds quicker than team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel qualified in third ahead of team-mate Charles Leclerc and Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

Earlier, Bottas had been the quickest in the final free practice session, which was cut short when Toro Rosso's Alexander Albon lost control and spun into a wall.

Qualifying Recap

Here's the final classification from qualifying:

Antonio Giovinazzi spent Q1 stuck in the Alfa Romeo garage with a power unit problem, so he joined Albon in failing to take part in qualifying after the latter's crash.

Racing Point's Lance Stroll and Williams duo George Russell and Robert Kubica were also eliminated.

In Q2, Mercedes, Ferrari and Verstappen swapped to medium tyres and were rewarded with the top five places, with Hamilton and Bottas recording times under 1:32.00, which they would do again in Q3.

Alfa Romeo's Kimi Raikkonen fell short of Q3 for the first time in 53 races:

He was joined by Daniil Kvyat, Sergio Perez and McLaren pair Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris.

Q3 saw Pierre Gasly take P6 ahead of Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg. Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean rounded out the top 10 having failed to set a time after being caught up in traffic.

FP3 Recap

Here's the final classification from FP3:

As he would go on to do in qualifying, Kubica was the first driver to set a time in the session with a 1:37.220. However, he was only able to shave a little more than a second off that time and finished P20.

Red Bull's cars did not emerge from the garage until halfway through the session, and Verstappen only recorded five laps, but he was able to finish P7. Team-mate Gasly completed eight laps, but he only finished P15 having opted only to use medium tyres.

A swap to soft tyres midway through allowed Bottas to overcome the Ferrari duo, but the switch did not yield the same results for Hamilton, who finished a slightly disappointing session in fourth behind them and his team-mate.

The session was cut short five minutes from the end when Albon crashed:

The crash effectively ruled him out of qualifying, but he was able to get out of the car unassisted.