Sebastian Vettel underscored why he is a four-time world champion after producing an incredible final lap to take pole position for the Chinese GP on Sunday.The German had been slower than teammate Kimi Raikkonen throughout the qualifying session in Shanghai, but when the Finn only marginally improved on his last attempt, that was enough for Vettel to finish ahead by just 0.087s with a great final sector.Mercedes had no answer to the pace of Ferrari, as the Italian team scored their first back-to-back front-row lockout since the days of Michael Schumacher and Felipe Massa in 2006.Valtteri Bottas would again be the faster of the two Silver Arrows in third as Lewis Hamilton struggled with understeer in his car through the slow-speed sections, finishing half a tenth behind in fourth.Both teams have also opted for a different tyre strategy in the race, completing their Q2 times on the Soft compound tyres as opposed the Ultrasoft allowing them to go longer in the first stint.That could leave them vulnerable to the Red Bulls, however, as Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo start fifth and sixth respectively, but on the faster albeit less durable Ultrasoft rubber.For Ricciardo though, just making it to qualifying was a relief after a turbo failure in the final practice session left his team scrambling to change the engine in the two-hour break.In fact, the Australian would only make it onto the track three minutes before the end of Q1 to just make it through before rapidly improving as the session progressed.Behind the top three teams, the competition remained incredibly close between Renault, Haas, Force India, Toro Rosso and McLaren.Nico Hulkenberg would put Renault at the head of the midfield pack securing seventh in front of Sergio Perez as the Mexican secured Force India's best grid position of the season in eighth.Carlos Sainz made the top 10 by just 0.016s and would go on to claim ninth as Romain Grosjean recovered from a rear brake fire in practice to complete the Q3 order for Haas.His teammate Kevin Magnussen was the unlucky victim of Sainz's last-gasp effort in Q2 but will have free choice of tyres in P11. Esteban Ocon consolidated Force India's better performance in 12th.McLaren's single lap problems continue as, despite trying to use a slipstream tactic down the back straight, Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne matched the same 13th and 14th places they started from in Bahrain.Brendon Hartley was 15th in the first of the Toro Rosso's after Williams' Sergey Sirotkin and the Kiwi's teammate Pierre Gasly both missed out on the second part of qualifying by less than a tenth of a second.The Russian has continued to be impressive for the British team as they struggle for pace but for Gasly, starting P17 is quite the disappointment after the high of fourth last Sunday in the Middle East.Lance Stroll was 18th in another tough session for the Canadian as the two Saubers completed the grid with Charles Leclerc recovering from a spin on his first lap to finish almost half a second clear of his teammate Marcus Ericsson.The full grid can be seen below: