Sebastian Vettel has said that Red Bull did not have the pace to qualify at the front of the grid for tomorrow's Chinese Grand Prix.

The reigning world champion failed to set a lap time in the third part of qualifying earlier today in a bid to save tyres for the race, while Mercedes's Lewis Hamilton set the quickest time.

The German told Sky Sports News: "Well I think we saw that some people are very fast, especially the Mercedes and the Ferrari. So we decided to go in a different direction, whether it works or not we will see tomorrow.

"Anything is possible, obviously the soft tyres don't last that long, [they are] great on one lap but after that it is not so nice, so the medium tyre seems a better race tyre.

"We still have the option to choose, but I think it is pretty clear what we tried to achieve this afternoon."

The 25-year-old started from pole in the first two races of the 2013 Formula 1 season.