Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton overcame the rain hindrance to top Saturday's grid race ahead of Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo, who was followed by teammate and four-time defending champion Sebastian Vettel in the F1 Shanghai Grand Prix.

Hamilton's time of 1 minute, 55.516 seconds at the Shanghai International Circuit was 1.125 seconds faster than Ricciardo, who seems to see further off his bad luck in the season. The Australian had his second place in Australia stripped through disqualification and had been imposed 10-place penalty on the grid for a pit-lane infringement in Malaysia, but rebounded with a fourth place performance in Bahrain Grand Prix this month.

It was Mecerdes' fourth straight pole to start the Formula One season and the third for Hamilton with his teammate Nico Rosberg finished fourth.

Hamilton and Rosberg have wrapped up all the victories in the first three races the season for the Mercedes, who set the pace in constructors standings with 111 points, 67 more than second-placed India Force.

Rosberg leads the championship on 61 points, 11 ahead of Hamilton, but quite probably yield it to his British teammate after Sunday's race.

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso settled in the fifth place, while his Finish teammate Kimi Raikkonen was out of grid competition in qualifying 2 race and had to start from 11th place Sunday.