Sebastian Vettel said he struggled on the opening day of practice at the Chinese GP

Sebastian Vettel admitted after the opening day of practice for the Chinese Grand Prix that tenth place on the timesheets was not the position he had hoped for.

With the option tyre well over a second per lap faster, Pirelli's Paul Hembery predicted a race pattern much like that seen at the Australian Grand Prix. "It'll be like Melbourne I guess, where the top teams were forced to qualify on the softer tyre because it has such a performance advantage and within the first ten laps they'll have to pit. "Some of the Q2 teams might opt - as we saw in Melbourne - to start on the medium tyre and try and gain some positions on the track as the first ten cars drop in. "Some could be looking at a two-stop race, worst case three. Which is in line with what we're looking for. "The soft is degrading more than what we'd like. It's getting a lot of graining on the front left, which is exaggerating the degradation. But it doesn't really affect the way the race should be created - a two/three-stop race."