Nico Rosberg won the first pole of the season, the fifth in his career, and caught up with his father. With him on the front row starts Hamilton – the first row at Mercedes.
Showed the third time Riccardo lose ten positions because no fixed wheel at the pit stop in Malaysia.
1, Nico Rosberg (Mercedes): “We worked hard from the beginning of the weekend, solved problems, looking for the optimal settings. The difficulty is that the training took place mostly during the day, including the latest, preceding qualifying, when the temperatures were much higher, so now had to rely on intuition, choosing settings, and trying to figure out how to behave in the car at night in colder conditions. But everything turned out well, I was quite comfortable behind the wheel, and I was able to pass a good lap. Very nice start from pole position! With this track I have good memories: it was in Bahrain, I became the champion of the series GP2, here I made my debut in Formula 1, and I’ve always liked Sakhir. Today, once again confirmed that this track for me. However, tomorrow will be a different story. The race will have other tasks and overcome other difficulties – the main problem is the degradation of the tires. But I feel quite confident, because yesterday in training a good job on the long series of laps, when the tank was a lot of fuel. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to keep the lead.”
2, Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes): “I’m not at all upset and I want to congratulate Nico, who in the course of the weekend excellent good at his job, would add – and eventually showed excellent speed today. I made a mistake on my lap and was forced to pass in a straight line at the entrance to the first turn, but proud of the team that was able to continue the series poles. From past experience we know that fuel consumption is big. Of course, we take into account this factor in their work on the weekend and took a number of measures. I have no doubt that tomorrow all this will be all right.”
3, Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull): “I am delighted with the speed of the car. Excluding pilots Mercedes, I have achieved excellent results, being the best of the rest. Nevertheless, we still have to reduce the gap between them. I’m very satisfied with today’s qualification. Qualifying was very difficult. By the beginning of the session the temperature dropped significantly. The third training session we seriously lacked in speed, but in the evening the situation changed dramatically. Nice gap on Mercedes, but, as I said, we have much to do to deal with them on equal terms. Unfortunately, tomorrow I will not be able to start from the second row, I waiting difficult race, but I’m looking forward to the start. I can help competent strategy. Our team consists of excellent technicians, they will do everything that I played the maximum number of items. I think the difference in strategy with two and three pit stops not so great – it may be worthwhile to try something special.”