Lewis Hamilton drove a perfect lap to take pole position for the Singapore Grand Prix by half a second over the Williams of Pastor Maldonado. Sebastien Vettel finished the session third ahead of Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso.
The session started with the usual suspects heading out of the Q1 session joined by a struggling Kamui Kobayashi who just couldn’t quite make it through as he was dropped in to eighteenth place in the closing seconds of the session. Bruno Senna had a lucky escape after skimming the walls as the session came to a close.
Hamilton topped the times in Q2 for the majority of the session in the boiling Singapore heat followed closely by the two Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber. Nico Hulkenberg and Kimi Raikkonen we’re late casualties of the session as they were forced down the times and out of the top ten. The Lotus driver who is currently third in the championship will have it all to do tomorrow in the race, but will have the advantage of a fresh set of tyres.
Felipe Massa was another big name not to make it in to Q3 along with Sergio Perez, Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne. Senna wasn’t to be lucky in Q2 as he collided with the wall once again, damaging the right rear corner of his Williams leaving him in seventeenth place. “Not much damage but enough to stop me from running” summed up Senna.
Both McLarens headed out on track early for Q3 and Hamilton didn’t hang around in putting his stamp on qualifying as team-mate Button set an early time; Hamilton demolished the times by nearly a second faster. Vettel looked strong but ultimately couldn’t keep up the pace as he slotted in to third place with his first timed lap.
Romain Grosjean looked very twitchy on his flying lap as he drifted close to the Singapore walls; he wrestled the car around the track to take fourth fastest jut behind Vettel. Neither Mercedes cars set a timed lap as they looked to save on tyre wear, Michael Schumacher will start ahead of team-mate Nico Rosberg.
Pastor Maldonado put in an impressive performance with his final timed lap as he took second place behind Hamilton. Vettel pushed hard but could only manage third place after dominating all three practice sessions of the weekend, team-mate Webber starts from fifth place. Button took fourth place ahead of Alonso could only manage fifth place on his one and only timed lap. A strong lap from Paul Di Resta put him on the third row of the grid as he took sixth place.
