Rosberg eases to pole, Ricciardo to start alongside

F1 Grand Prix, GP Singapore, Marina Bay Street Circuit

Nico Rosberg continued to dominate at Singapore's Marina Bay by comfortably taking pole position in today's qualifying session, having half a second in hand over second placed Daniel Ricciardo. Lewis Hamilton set the third fastest time after another few difficult qualifying laps.

Q1 got off to a predictable start with both Mercedes immediately to the top, even though it was Lewis Hamilton who proved fastest. They may have surprised himself as well on the back of a few troubled free practice sessions. The times stood for a long time, but it was eventually Ricciardo who was fastest in Q1, topping Raikkonen, Verstappen and the two Mercedes.

Both McLarens also easily progressed with laps that seemed a lot more competitive than their showing in final practice.

Down the pecking order were the usual suspects, including Manor, Sauber and Renault. Only Ericsson managed to escape elimination from that bunch, while disaster struck for Sebastian Vettel as he was unable to set a competitive time. His best was 3 seconds down on Magnussen who eventually qualified in 17th position.

Vettel had quickly reported something was wrong with the car, but the team, knowing the problem was unlikely to be fixed rapidly, still asked Vettel to try. The German was nowhere though, with the inner front wheel continuously lifted off the ground in sharp corners. Once in the box, and realising there was no chance for the car to get repaired, Ferrari quickly confirmed that was a anti-roll bar problem on the car.

Q2 was another surprise for Mercedes perhaps, as both their cars were sent out on the ultra softs, whereas minutes later, the Red Bulls were out on track on super soft tyres. This obviously made Red Bull unable to challenge Mercedes for the top times in Q2, but allows them to start the race on these much longer lasting tyres.

On the timesheet, Red Bull's tyre choice resulted in 0.9s and 1.1s deficit for their cars on a single lap compared to pace-setter Nico Rosberg. Lewis Hamilton was second fastest, but nearly half a second down on his team mate. Raikkonen was interestingly unable to beat Red Bull's times, even though he also opted - just like the rest of the field - to use new ultra soft Pirelli tyres.

In the last minute, while many were on track for a final atttempt to get through to Q3, Romain Grosjean lost the rear end under braking, ending up in the armco barrier at Turn 10. This resulted in a large yellow flag section, enabling only those who were already past to set a faster time. It added another disappointment to Grosjean's extremely difficult race weekend.

Jenson Button meanwhile also parked his car, having broken the steering on his car after clipping a wall.

At the end of the session, Alonso managed to get through in 8th, along with both Force Indias who ended up 9th and 10th. Bottas on the other hand was 11th and got eliminated.

Q3 kicked off 10 minutes later due to necessary repairs to barriers at turn 10. When ready eventually, Nico Hulkenberg set the first time on the board, but it certainly wasn't the fastest, as of the first 9 runners (Kvyat didn't run in the first few minutes) only Sergio Perez proved slower than him.

Nico Rosberg proved fastest overall, 7 tenths quicker than Hamilton and another 2 tenths ahead of Raikkonen. Ricciardo was 4th fastest with his first flying lap, followed by Verstappen, Sainz, Alonso and the two Force Indias.

The second outings proved only successful for both Red Bull drivers, with Ricciardo moving up into second and Verstappen up to 4th.