QUALIFYING REPORT
While at the front it ’ s desperately close , the gulf between the two pace setting teams and the rest was wider than ever , with fifth place going to Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull albeit 1.7 seconds shy of Vettel ’ s top time .
The Australian was a quarter of a second faster than teammate Max Verstappen who ended up seventh on the timing screens . Felipe Massa split the Red Bull pair to claim the sixth best time .
Renault ’ s Nico Hulkenberg was eighth , ahead of the the Force India pair of Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon who rounded out the top ten . Eleventh place went to Toro Rosso ’ s Carlos Sainz , with Williams Lance Stroll 13th ahead of the second Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat in P13 . The three were separated by just two hundredths of a second . McLaren ’ s Fernando Alonso was the last man eliminated in Q2 in 15th .
Jolyon Palmer was 16th . The Renault driver crashed out at the end of Q1 when he caught too much of a kerb in Turn 4 and was pitched into the barriers .
He was eliminated ahead of McLaren ’ s Stoffel Vandoorne , the Saubers of Pascal Wehrlein and Marcus Ericsson and the second Haas of Romain Grosjean . Vandoore , though , will start from the back of the grid as he is due to take an enginerelated grid penalty .