Vettel leads before qualifying in Russia

Ferrari is aiming for pole at the Russian GP after leading all free practice sessions this weekends in Sochi. Sebastian Vettel was fastest before qualifying ahead of Kimi Räikkönen and Valtteri Bottas.

The Red Bulls, Ferraris, Mercedes and Stroll started the session with the ultrasoft instead of the supersoft. Ferrari seemed to be faster at first, but Hamilton ended up getting the fastest time of the first attempt with 1 tenth over Vettel. Bottas was 2 tenths slower than Hamilton on 3^rd, but ahead of Räikkönen (+0.8), who asked for a set-up change. Ricciardo and Verstappen were more than a second behind the leaders, although Verstappen improved to a 0.6s difference in his 3^rd attempt.

Mercedes and Ferrari gave another try to the ultrasoft and Ferrari went back to the top with Vettel ahead of Räikkönen (+0.3), Bottas (+0.4) and Hamilton (+0,5). They were followed by Verstappen, Massa, Hülkenberg, Ricciardo, Sainz and Magnussen.

Result:

POS	Driver	Team	Time/diff.
1	Sebastian Vettel	Scuderia Ferrari	1’34.001
2	Kimi Räikkönen	Scuderia Ferrari	0.337
3	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport	0.363
4	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport	0.541
5	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing	1.451
6	Felipe Massa	Williams Martini Racing	1.470
7	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault Sport F1 Team	1.661
8	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing	1.829
9	Carlos Sainz	Scuderia Toro Rosso	2.163
10	Kevin Magnussen	Haas F1 Team	2.555
11	Lance Stroll	Williams Martini Racing	2.648
12	Esteban Ocon	Sahara Force India F1 Team	2.675
13	Daniil Kvyat	Scuderia Toro Rosso	2.845
14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren Honda	2.868
15	Sergio Pérez	Sahara Force India F1 Team	2.961
16	Romain Grosjean	Haas F1 Team	3.163
17	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren Honda	3.181
18	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber F1 Team	3.502
19	Pascal Wehrlein	Sauber F1 Team	3.656
20	Jolyon Palmer	Renault Sport F1 Team	–