Sebastian Vettel had a nightmare qualifying session for the Singapore Grand Prix, with a suspension issue seeing the German eliminated at the first hurdle on Saturday.
The Scuderia Ferrari driver will start at the back of the grid at the Marina Bay Street Circuit having been confident of a strong qualifying performance on a track he’s won four times, but with the suspension issue he was unable to find the pace to make it through to Q2, and will start right at the back of the field.
“Already in the first lap, going into turn one, something happened,” said Vettel. “Then in turn two, through turn five, I felt that the car was not the same.
“So far we don’t really know what happened, initially I thought it was at the front, but then it felt like the rear bar had broken. I hadn’t felt anything wrong in P3. Then I wanted to come into the box, but in the end we decided to stay out, and then we came in because it was hopeless anyway, we were just not quick enough, and there was no time within three or four minutes to fix the problem.”
Ferrari have decided to give Vettel a brand new power unit and gearbox overnight, effectively penalty free, and the German is still hopeful that he can have a good race on Sunday with a lot of new tyre sets available to him.
“For tomorrow we have a long race in front of us, with a lot of safety cars,” said Vettel. “At least we have some new tyres, and even if for sure it is not an ideal situation. We can still have a good race.”
