CHINESE GP QUALIFYING // HAMILTON, YET AGAIN

Lewis Hamilton set the pace once again, claiming pole position for Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix at Shanghai. Hamilton looked good in both Friday's practice and today's three qualifying sessions, laying down a 1:36.303 laptime, nearly a half second ahead of the second place qualifier. This just might be the most important race of the season, and with the pole position, Lewis Hamilton once again, has the opportunity to seal the deal.

But Hamilton fans no better than to uncork the champagne just yet. After a disappointing race at Fuji, with aggressive driving by Ferrari's Felipe Massa and a handful of mistakes by Hamilton, it's anyone's game at this point. Both of the Ferrari's had a strong showing today, ending Q3 in second (Raikkonen) and third (Massa) place. The ever calm Fernando Alonso will start in fourth, coming off a big win at the Japanese GP. But it was Robert Kubica's 12th place finish in qualifying that really stunned everyone. The BMW-Sauber team has had a tough weekend, with news just coming in that Heidfeld's 7th place spot after qualifying, will now be bumped three places due to penalties.

Revised Provisional Grid as follows //

1 Lewis Hamilton, McLaren
2 Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari
3 Felipe Massa, Ferrari
4 Fernando Alonso, Renault
5 Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren
6 Sebastian Vettel, Toro Rosso
7 Jarno Trulli, Toyota
8 Sebastien Bourdais, Toro Rosso
9 Nick Heidfeld, BMW Sauber
10 Nelson Piquet, Renault
11 Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber
12 Timo Glock, Toyota
13 Rubens Barrichello, Honda
14 Nico Rosberg, Williams
15 David Coulthard, Red Bull
16 Mark Webber, Red Bull
17 Kazuki Nakajima, Williams
18 Jenson Button, Honda
19 Adrian Sutil, Force India
20 Giancarlo Fisichella, Force India

For those of us here on the West Coast, SpeedTV will air the Chinese GP live at 11:30pm tonight (Saturday Oct.18). Stay with ColdTrackDays for continued coverage, as we follow the F1 season into it's final stages. Video comes courtesy of Axis of Oversteer // 10.18.2008