Hamilton snatches Singapore pole

F1 Grand Prix, GP Singapore, Marina Bay Street Circuit

The very close and hard fought qualifying session for the Singapore Grand Prix has ended with Lewis Hamilton taking pole, topping his teammate Nico Rosberg by just 0.007 seconds. Daniel Ricciardo qualified 3rd, ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso.

One of the first men on track was Nico Rosberg, but similarly he also was one of the first off, finding out that his brakes were not up to temperature in turn 10. He decided to go straight on in the run-off area, and then reverse back on the track, creating a short yellow flag situation in that area.

By the halfway mark, only Vettel, Ricciardo and Ericsson were still in their boxes. Alonso on the other hand took the advantage on his first flyer on softs, topping Raikkonen by 4 tenths. However though topped both a few minutes later, also on the soft tyres with Gutierrez getting into second thanks to a run on the super soft tyres.

With 7 minutes left, the Red Bulls turned up, immediately on the super soft tyres. All other runners also decided to switch to super softs, risking to be eliminated if they did not.

Raikkonen soon went fastest on those tyres, topping Alonso, Hamilton, Button, Bottas, Rosberg and Hulkenberg. The front runners easily secured their place in Q2 after a single run on super softs. Massa however was in the danger zone right up until the end before posting 11th. Grosjean was the last man to improve and get himself out of trouble, effectively eliminated Adrian Sutil, along with Maldonado, Bianchi, Kobayashi, Chilton and Ericsson.

Q2 kicks off with 3 minutes of engine silence before nearly everybody went to the track on the super soft tyres. After the first string of laps, Hamilton had the edge, but just 0.041s ahead of Alonso and another 3 hundredths more on Raikkonen. Ricciardo went 4th fastest, ahead of Rosberg and Vettel.

Two minutes from the end, Felipe Massa benefits from a quiet moment on track to go 4th fastest. At the same time, all others come out again, except for Hamilton, Ricciardo and the Ferrari drivers.

Rosberg though did get out again, setting the fastest time, 4 tenths quicker than anybody else so far. Whether this was wise is something else as obviously these are the tyres he will have to start the race with.

Eliminated meanwhile are Button, Vergne, Hulkenberg, Gutierrez, Perez and Grosjean. The latter proved very angry with that result, having suffered yet another car issue on his flying lap which prevented him from doing any better.

Q3 begins with Massa starting a flyer, soon followed by all other 9 remaining cars. Massa's lap though was impressive and nobody managed to beat it on their first runs. Ricciardo came closest, followed by Alonso, Raikkonen, Bottas, Hamilton, Rosberg, Vettel, Kvyat and Magnussen. The difference from first to seventh was however just 0.275s.

The second attempts started troublesome for Raikkonen as he found himself without power, immediately returning to the pits.

Ricciardo on the other hand crossed the finish line with the fastest lap, only to see Rosberg improve moments later. Hamilton though had the last word and got pole position by 0.007s, even despite slightly missing his braking point into turn 1.

Rosberg shouted "Damnit!" over the radio as soon as he heard about missing out on pole, but with both Mercedes on the front row again, the team as a whole could not have hoped for anything better.