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Lewis Hamilton.Reuters.

The second race of the 2017 Formula One season, the Chinese Grand Prix, is set to start on Sunday, April 9. Mercedes Lewis Hamilton is in pole position once again after he beat Sebastian Vettel by 0.186 seconds.

Also read: Lewis Hamilton sweep, the Mercedes-Ferrari war, Antonio Giovinazzi crash

Ferrari dominated the second free practice session and the early stages of the qualifying but Hamilton's final lap in Q3 proved to be too much for the Ferrari driver. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said Lewis Hamilton was the key to overhauling Ferrari's early advantage. Mercedes would have been celebrating a Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas one two but Vettel ended up splitting them up on his final lap in qualifying.

"Lewis Hamilton. We have seen in the last years that we were able to ramp up our game over the sessions, and that Q3 looked much better than the other sessions. I think the same happened here, it's learning about the car's behaviour and driving it and giving it everything in the final go. I'm not saying the others are not doing it. Today clearly he made the difference ... Similar to Melbourne," ESPN quoted Wolff as saying.

"You must give credit to Valtteri also because it's the second race Valtteri is doing in the team. There was no running on Friday and here he's less than two-tenths off Lewis. So I'm very happy also about his development slope."

Despite Hamilton starting in pole position and Vettel in second, that does not give the Brit an advantage ahead of the start of the Chinese Grand Prix. The Brit started in Pole in the Australian Grand Prix too but after choosing to go for an early pit stop, his car proved to be too slow as Vettel's Ferrari raced ahead for the victory.

Hamilton's fastest lap in Shanghai bettered Michael Schumacher's 2004 timing by over half a second and he did not know if Vettel would finish ahead or behind him.

"I didn't know whether we would be ahead or behind. All I knew I could do is to just do the best lap I could possibly do and each time I went out I eked out a little bit more time," Hamilton said.

Both the Ferraris topped the final practice session and Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen, who qualified fourth for the race, also topped the timesheets at the end of the first two parts of qualifying. And in Q3 even Mercedes boss Niki Lauda bet against his own team but Vettel missed out, and was still pleased with his overall performance.

"It was a nice session. I enjoyed it a lot. I was very happy with the lap I had. Last corner I lost a little bit, maybe chickened on to the brakes a bit too soon - but we just had enough margin to make it on to the front row," Vettel Said.

Check out the highlights from the qualifying session of the 2017 Chinese Grand Prix. 

Where to watch

The 2017 Chinese Grand Prix is set to start at 2:00pm local time, 11:30am IST and 6:00am GMT.

TV and live streaming information

Australia: TV: Ten HD. Live Streaming: Ten Play.

India: TV: Star Sports SelectHD2. Live Streaming: Hotstar.

UK: TV: Sky Sports F1. Live Streaming: Watch Sky Sports.

USA: TV: NBCSN. Live Streaming: NBC Sports Live.

Asia: TV: Fox Sports. Live Streaming: Fox Sports Play.

Middle East: TV: Bein Sports. Live Streaming: Bein Sports Connect.