SINGAPORE- With the final session time finished, and on a flying lap, Lewis Hamilton took his Mercedes across the line to beat his teammate Nico Rosberg by one thousands of a second Saturday night, recording a time of 1:45:681 to take pole for Sunday evening’s Singapore Grand Prix.
The Briton recorded his seventh pole of the season and his 37th of his career. Daniel Ricciardo finished in third.
“It was always the plan, but it was quite an exciting qualifying session and it was surprising to see how everyone was so close. Hamilton said. “I did some good laps in the first and second qualifying sessions, and the Ferraris were very close, but it was good for our team. The last lap I locked up into turn one, but I managed to pull it back , but I thought that that tenth was lackluster, but I just kept going and going and it felt better throughout the lap.
The beginning of the session viewed many of the drivers immediately opting for the supersoft tires and less laps because of the intense and twisty street circuit. But the big surprise of the session was Kimi Raikkonen, who recorded the fastest time of the session with a 1:14:685. His teammate, Fernando Alonso, took second to give Ferrari some hope. Pastor Maldonado and Adrian Sutil joined the regular suspects and failed to advance.
But the Mercedes duo of Hamilton and Rosberg woke up in the next session, showing their dominance as the latter just edged his teammate, with a best time of 1:45:825. Unfortunately, Jenson Button, Jean-Eric Vergne, Nico Hulkenberg, Estaban Gutierrez, Sergio Perez, and Romain Grosjean did not advance.
While Mercedes celebrated another 1-2 for the seventh time this year, Sebastian Vettel led the rest of the grid by taking fourth, while Alonso was fifth. Felipe Massa was sixth, while Raikkonen finished in seventh, despite having to pull off the track midway the final period with engine failure. Valterri Bottas finished in the other Williams in eighth, while Kevin Magnussen and Dani Kvyat rounded out the top ten.
Hamilton considering winning the pole, still knows that this is the toughest race of the year.
“I think coming into the weekend, we had an opinion on how the tires would behave and obviously we got into long runs and found out how things were going to happen.” He stated. “Tomorrow will be an interesting race, and it will not be easy, but I think it will be a great race to watch for the fans and a lot will be going on.”
Mark Gero has written formula one racing stories since 2002 on the Internet for such sites as Motorsport.com, Racing Information Service News and for a brief time at the Munich Eye newspaper in Munich, Germany along with Autoweek online. Mark also has a diploma in journalism from the London School of Journalism in London, England and in addition a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from Ashford University in Clinton, Iowa.