Lewis Hamilton delivered an incredible lap time to take pole position for the 2018 Singapore Grand Prix as he blew away his competition at a track that hasn't traditionally suited Mercedes.
The Briton posted a 1:36.015 – easily beating the previous lap record of 1:39.491 – on his first effort to fly to the top spot ahead of Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who was more than three-tenths shy.
Hamilton's championship rival and pole favourite, Sebastian Vettel, starts third, admitting it was a "scrappy" session for Ferrari. Vettel's time of 1:36.628 was 0.613s off Hamilton's benchmark and the German was clearly unhappy with his lap.
The second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas will line-up alongside Vettel on the second row ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and Daniel Ricciardo as the top three teams dominated the session.
'Best of the rest' went to Force India's Sergio Perez, albeit two seconds down in seventh place ahead of Haas' Romain Grosjean, Esteban Ocon and Nico Hulkenberg.
Fernando Alonso narrowly missed out on a Q3 appearance by a tenth and starts in P11, in stark contrast to his McLaren team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne who failed to escape Q1 and starts P18. It was a similar story for Kevin Magnussen who struggled on Saturday. The Dane qualified eight places lower than his team-mate.
Williams bring up the rear in 19th and 20th with Sergey Sirotkin leading Lance Stroll – the duo well down on the pace and the only drivers in the 1:41 bracket.
Q1 almost saw the surprise inclusion of Hamilton who risked using the slower tyre and ended up 14th, just 0.2s clear of the 'drop-zone', but that strategy clearly paid off later in the session.
Discussion about this post