Sebastian Vettel underlined his superiority over his rivals around the Marina Bay street circuit by storming to a serene pole position for the Singapore GP.
Surprisingly, things did get a little closer for comfort in the Singapore heat than he, and anyone else, might have imagined as Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg lapped just 0.091s slower to win what was a far tighter fight for the second front-row starting slot.
On a day team-mate Kimi Raikkonen had to take painkilling injections for a bad back and dropped out in Q2 for the second successive race, the other Lotus of Romain Grosjean capped an impressive start to his weekend by beating the other Red Bull of Mark Webber to third right at the last.
For Webber fourth place was undoubtedly a major disappointment given the speed of the Red Bull RB9, nonetheless, he still outpaced the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton whose slightly underwhelming weekend relative to Rosberg continues with fifth on the grid.
After struggling with oversteer throughout progress, Ferrari’s fears that their strong form on low-downforce circuits wouldn’t transfer to Singapore materialized in depressing fashion as both their drivers lapped a full second off Vettel’s pace.
Pos Driver Team/Car Time Gap 1. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m42.841s 2. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m42.932s +0.091s 3. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m43.058s +0.217s 4. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m43.152s +0.311s 5. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m43.254s +0.413s 6. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m43.890s +1.049s 7. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m43.938s +1.097s 8. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m44.282s +1.441s 9. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m44.439s +1.598s 10. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari No time set Q2 cut-off time: 1m44.555s 11. Nico Hulkenberg Sauber-Ferrari 1m44.555s +1.650s 12. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m44.588s +1.683s 13. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m44.658s +1.753s 14. Sergio Perez McLaren-Mercedes 1m44.752s +1.847s 15. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m45.185s +2.280s 16. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Renault 1m45.388s +2.483s Q1 cut-off time: 1m45.982s 17. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m46.121s +1.925s 18. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m46.619s +2.423s 19. Charles Pic Caterham-Renault 1m48.111s +3.915s 20. Giedo van der Garde Caterham-Renault 1m48.320s +4.124s 21. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Cosworth 1m48.830s +4.634s 22. Max Chilton Marussia-Cosworth 1m48.930s +4.734s