No love for China yet?

With qually over, it looks as though the Ferrari pace is no fluke, and Mercedes might be struggling with tire temp. Any rapid changes in the track temps could easily flip things around for Mercedes, and likely other teams as well.

Kimi looked well on this way to wrapping up the pole, and Seb manages to claw the time back with a final sector that put him on pole by less than a tenth of a second. Mercedes are back almost a half second from Seb, and it appears that Red Bull might have a shot at Mercedes if they can deliver some solid race pace. It looks as if the midfield teams have developed some larger gaps, but those might disappear with track temp changes and race pace.

I've always found China an interesting track. Though I'm not fond of the really long start/finish straight, the rest of the track has some decent variations, and off line encounters sometimes leave room for some non-DRS passing along the way. The first turn battle is usually still being sorted out of mayhem through turn 4, and then things begin to find some order.

With new track lap records in qually it will be interesting to see what kind of race pace the 2018 cars deliver.