体坛英语新闻：Mercedes' Hamilton takes pole, Webber runs out of fuel to be disqualified in F1 China Grand

SHANGHAI, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton grasped his first pole position of this year's Formula One world championship here on Saturday, while last season's all-around constructors champions Red Bull struggled in qualifying for the China Grand Prix as Mark Webber didn't even make the third qualifying sector.

Hamilton, leading all the way in Saturday afternoon's qualifying session, claimed the top position with his best time of one minute and 34.484 seconds, beating Finn Kimi Raikkonan of Lotus to the second place by 0.257 seconds.

The Briton, a most triumphant F1 driver here, will vie for his third trophy in the Shanghai International Circuit, where the past nine China GP held to date have produced eight different winners.

"It's an incredible feeling and I'm so happy to have our first pole," said Hamilton, who announced to leave McLaren last September to join Mercedes. "The lap was great, the team has performed well all season and I really hope we can carry that into tomorrow."

"The margin was really surprising because in FP3 (the third free practice session) the Ferraris were very quick and we didn't know where they'd be in qualifying," he added.

Fenando Alonso will start from the third position for Ferrari after finishing Saturday's qualifying sessions with the best time of 1:34.788, and Nico Rosberg, last year's winner of the drivers championship, lines up the fourth with a 1:34.861 run in Q3, dropping one place after a slow final sector.

With the two tyre compounds, all drivers focus on preserving their tyres and most of them went for only one flying lap.

"These tyres are very tricky this weekend," commented Hamilton. "Making the option tyre last is almost impossible so there's probably going to be quite a short stint in the beginning. Everyone has the same, except the guy to my right who seems to be able to look after them a little bit better than most people."

"Still, I think we'll have a competitive race, we've got good race pace and although I expect a really tough race, I hope that we can maintain position," he said.

Webber failed to make Q3 after the Australian ran out of fuel in Q2 and had to park his car on the inside of the hairpin. He was beaten to the 14th position.

The other Red Bull Sebastian Vettel had to abort his lap as he tried to set a time on medium tyre, and will start from the 9th pole position. German Nico Hulkenberg, who did not finish the last qualifying either, will start tenth.

Ferrari's Felipe Massa was fifth ahead of Lotus' Romain Grosjean, while Scuderia Toro Rosso's Daniel Ricciardo was seventh. Jenson Button of Britain will start eighth for McLaren as he finished second qualifying sector in 2:05.673, almost half a minute behind the pace-setter Hamilton.