However, Valtteri Bottas pipped Hamilton's best time by three thousands of a second; and neither Max Verstappen nor Massa put in a strong lap.

Qualifying began in a dramatic fashion as World Champion Hamilton lost the back end of the car with over-steer, seemingly due to a driver error, crashing to retire from Q1 without setting a lap time.

Vettel achieved a good start during the second phase of clutch control to overtake Bottas on the first corner.

Hamilton's only pit-stop positioned him fifth, after which he overtook Verstappen and was briefly able to challenge Räikkönen for the podium,[5] but unable to overtake Raikkonen in third.

Ricciardo also battled up to sixth after starting fifteenth on the grid and dropping to seventeenth as collateral of the Vandoorne-Magnussen collision.

Initially overtaking on lap 5 (as the safety car was pulling into pitlane), Massa held off Alonso who remained close throughout the race.