SOCHI: Formula One frontrunner Sebastian Vettel stunned Mercedes to take Ferrari’s first pole position since 2015 on Saturday with team-mate Kimi Raikkonen completing a front row lockout at the Russian Grand Prix.

The pole, Vettel’s 47th, ended a run of 18 in a row for once-dominant world champions Mercedes, who had Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton right behind the two red cars in third and fourth places.

The German, a four-time world champion with Red Bull, has won two of the first three races and leads triple champion Hamilton by seven points in the championship.

As a measure of Ferrari’s achievement in breaking the Mercedes stranglehold and returning to form, the pole was only the Italian team’s sixth since 2008.

It was also Ferrari’s first front row sweep since Brazilian Felipe Massa, now with Williams, and Raikkonen qualified first and second at the French Grand Prix — a race no longer on the calendar — in June 2008.

Statisticians would have to thumb back to the 2015 Singapore Grand Prix, 31 races ago, to find the last time Mercedes had no car on the front row.

“The first run was not really tidy, so I left it to the end, and I improved sometime in the last sector,” said Vettel, who had to wait before confirmation came over the radio that Mercedes were beaten. “I immediately opened the radio ‘tell me about the others, tell me about the others!’” he said.

Bottas was fastest in the first two phases of qualifying, with the choice of tyres coming into play, and those who had suspected the champions were hiding their pace in practice appeared to be justified.

Bottas, who has yet to win a grand prix and joined from Williams in January, recognised Mercedes had expected far more from a circuit where they have led every lap since the race first appeared on the calendar in 2014.

“For sure they have a very good car and we are struggling to compete with them,” he said of Ferrari.

Australian Daniel Ricciardo qualified fifth with Massa sixth and between the two Red Bulls with Max Verstappen behind in seventh.

Renault again had a car in the top 10 on the grid with Germany’s Nico Hulkenberg qualifying eighth.

Hulkenberg’s British team-mate Jolyon Palmer compounded a miserable day by crashing out of the first phase.

Starting grid: 1. Sebastian Vettel (Germany) Ferrari; 2. Kimi Raikkonen (Finland) Ferrari; 3. Valtteri Bottas (Finland) Mercedes; 4. Lewis Hamilton (Britain) Mercedes; 5. Daniel Ricciardo (Australia) Red Bull-TAG Heuer; 6. Felipe Massa (Brazil) Williams-Mercedes; 7. Max Verstappen (Netherlands) Red Bull-TAG Heuer; 8. Nico Huelkenberg (Germany) Renault; 9. Sergio Perez (Mexico) Force India-Mercedes; 10. Esteban Ocon (France) Force India-Mercedes; 11. Lance Stroll (Canada) Williams-Mercedes; 12. Daniil Kvyat (Russia) Toro Rosso-Renault; 13. Kevin Magnussen (Denmark) Haas-Ferrari; 14. Carlos Sainz Jr (Spain) Toro Rosso-Renault; 15. Fernando Alonso (Spain) McLaren; 16. Jolyon Palmer (Britain) Renault; 17. Pascal Wehrlein (Germany) Sauber-Ferrari; 18. Marcus Ericsson (Sweden) Sauber-Ferrari; 19. Romain Grosjean (France) Haas-Ferrari; 20. Stoffel Vandoorne (Belgium) McLaren.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2017