Ferrari 'phenomenal' to end Mercedes run - Vettel

Sebastian Vettel described his Ferrari as "phenomenal" as he ended Mercedes' run of 18 consecutive pole positions at the Russian Grand Prix.

With Ferrari having been fastest in all three practice sessions, Q2 saw Mercedes set the pace courtesy of Valtteri Bottas. However, both Vettel and teammate Kimi Raikkonen delivered strong laps in the final part of qualifying to secure Ferrari's first front row lockout since 2008, and the German could not hide his excitement at ending Mercedes' dominance on Saturdays.

"I was feeling reasonably comfortable," Vettel said. "But then I think in Q2 I lost a little bit the rhythm, so, my final run in Q2 which I thought would just give me enough of an idea for Q3 for the final segment, would put me in place, and it went wrong. I locked up, lost a bit the rhythm and then in Q3 the first run was not really tidy so I left it to the end and got a good lap in.

"It proved I think in the last sector, I think I made up some time compared to my lap before. I knew it would be tight and I knew I would be the first one across the line and by going quicker than what I saw on the screen before than Kimi I knew, for now, I'm ahead, but then I immediately and asked about everybody else, 'tell me about the others'.

"My race engineer Ricardo told me, 'They are closing the lap, they are closing the lap'. I said: 'Yeah, let me know, let me know – how are the sectors, how are the split times?' The first one I got was Valtteri, who didn't manage to improve, and then when I got the message that we got it, I was over the moon. So a big thank you to the team, I think the car was phenomenal this afternoon. It's really a pleasure to take a seat and go around with low fuel and just try and push it to the limit. If you have a rhythm here it feels fantastic, so glad I got it back and big thanks to the team.

"It's a team effort and it's a great result to have both cars on the front row. But it's only part of the job – the main job is obviously tomorrow but for now it's an important step. We managed to improve a little bit. Maybe the circuit came our way as well but it's a very good result and I'm sure everybody is very happy and very proud, so we'll enjoy that but in a couple of hours we'll start focusing on the race."

Raikkonen had been quickest after the first runs in Q3 and ended up just 0.059s adrift of his teammate, but the Finn failed to improve on his final attempt and admits he's not satisfied despite his best qualifying performance of the year.

"Obviously the aim is to be on the front," Raikkonen said. "The feeling has been better this weekend and now we just got some traffic on the out-lap on the last set and couldn't really make the tires work as well as the first run and it was a bit more tricky. It was thereabouts and then I just got it back in the last corner but it didn't pay off. I'm happier than previous qualifyings – obviously I think we had all the tools to be in the front today but a one-two for the team is not bad."