QUALIFYING REPORT
He said afterwards , “ Definitely pleased . Big thanks to all fans who turned up . A lot of British flags . Secondly , huge thanks to the team . We have improved . We ’ ve come here with the best the car has been this year . Great work done coming into this weekend . Could have been a faster lap .”
The Mercedes duo will start from the front row at Sepang , with this qualifying again proof that they have at least half a second when needed on their closest rivals , who again were the Red Bulls .
Rosberg summed up his afternoon , “ I was going for pole , what else would I be doing out there ? I would have come close but made a mistake at the last corner . I couldn ’ t get the settings right at the last corner . Second place doesn ’ t mean victory is not possible , we have seen that many times . I am still optimistic for the race .”
It will be an all blue second row and an all red third row , with Max Verstappen starting from third and teammate Daniel Ricciardo alongside in fourth , while the Ferrari boys will line up behind them with Sebastian Vettel in fifth and Kimi Raikkonen in sixth .
Verstappen said , “ I don ’ t know if we can beat them ( Mercedes ). This weekend there has been positive changes after Singapore . Our long race pace is promising , we needed to improve the short pace work and we did that .”
Next up were the Force India pair of Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg in seventh and eighth respectively , the Mexican is one to watch as Sepang has been a happy hunting ground for him in the past .