Down south this weekend, our neighbour Singapore is playing host to the Formula 1 Grand Prix and for 2017, Sebastian Vettel is once again for the 4th time, at pole position at the Marina Bay Street Circuit with a time of 1:39.491. He beat Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen by hair’s breadth of 3/10s of a second. Vettel’s qualifying lap set a new record at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.
Daniel Ricciardo in the other Red Bull qualified in 3rd position and Kimi Raikkonen in the other Ferrari qualified fourth. Hamilton and Bottas will be placed on the 5th and 6th position of the grid in tomorrow’s race. Initially, at the start of the qualifying session, there were reports of some oil on the track near turn 20 due to the previous Porsche race. This caused Williams’ Felipe Massa, Haas’s Romain Grosjean and Force India’s Esteban Ocon to hit the wall at this narrow street circuit.
“I don’t know where I found the time,” Vettel admitted. “We struggled yesterday and also this morning. I’m still full of adrenaline so maybe what I saw makes no sense, but I love this track. The car was tricky but was getting better and better. I scraped the wall with my left rear, and I think I need to calm down, but I’m very, very happy. It’s amazing, on this track, and when you can feel the car coming alive you can do what you want.”
Mercedes had a nightmare of a qualifying session with both the drivers starting at 5th and 6th place. Lewis Hamilton would have to fight his way through to challenge his rival, Vettel, who he has a 3 point lead in the drivers’ championship.
Tomorrow’s race will be an exciting race as with such a narrow street race, Mercedes has a big challenge ahead of them if they want to get good results to stay in the challenge for the top position. Not only do they have to find a way to get past Red Bull, they need to think of a long term strategy for street circuits.
Here are the highlights of the qualifying session at the Singapore Grand Prix.
| POS | DRIVER | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1:43.336 | 1:40.529 | 1:39.491 | |
| 2 | 1:42.010 | 1:40.332 | 1:39.814 | |
| 3 | 1:42.063 | 1:40.385 | 1:39.840 | |
| 4 | 1:43.328 | 1:40.525 | 1:40.069 | |
| 5 | 1:42.455 | 1:40.577 | 1:40.126 | |
| 6 | 1:43.137 | 1:41.409 | 1:40.810 | |
| 7 | 1:42.586 | 1:41.277 | 1:41.013 | |
| 8 | 1:42.086 | 1:41.442 | 1:41.179 | |
| 9 | 1:42.222 | 1:41.227 | 1:41.398 | |
| 10 | 1:42.176 | 1:41.826 | 1:42.056 | |
| 11 | 1:42.472 | 1:42.107 | ||
| 12 | 1:43.594 | 1:42.246 | ||
| 13 | 1:42.544 | 1:42.338 | ||
| 14 | 1:43.626 | 1:42.760 | ||
| 15 | 1:43.627 | 1:43.883 | ||
| 16 | 1:43.756 | |||
| 17 | 1:44.014 | |||
| 18 | 1:44.728 | |||
| 19 | 1:45.059 | |||
| 20 | 1:45.570 |
