Sebastian Vettel takes Singapore F1 GP pole with Lewis Hamilton fifth
With apologies to William Shakespeare, we came to praise Hamilton, not to bury him. The Mercedes driver was expected to equal Ayrton Senna's run of eight consecutive poles under the lights of the Marina Bay circuit - before, in all probability, going on to equal the great Brazilian's record of 41 victories. But it was not to be. Hamilton qualified fifth on the grid, a second and a half behind Vettel, and one place ahead of his team-mate and greatest rival Nico Rosberg.
On Friday evening and throughout Saturday there had been perplexed expressions - in and outside the Mercedes motorhome - concerning their lack of pace. They struggled in third free practice on Saturday morning, just as they had in FP2 the night before, but there was still a strong feeling that they in general and Hamilton in particular would pull something out of the hat when it really mattered.
Had they turned their engines down to achieve more reliability in the wake of Rosberg's blow-out in Monza? Were they struggling to get their tyre temperatures to the right level? The most alarming fact was the size of the gap between themselves and the leaders. Tyres, it seemed, was the problem - just as they had been in the previous race in Monza, where Hamilton's victory was not confirmed until hours after the race because of concerns over the team's tyre pressures.
Here, a bewildered looking Hamilton shrugged: "It was actually really challenging and these tyres for some reason aren't working on our car. It's so weird. You heat them up the same as everyone else, you do your warm-up lap the same as everyone else. Then you finish your lap, which you think will be OK grip and then you see someone else a second up the road. So it's very strange."
When asked if victory was still possible he grimaced: "The goal's to still win the race, but it's very hard to overtake here and the others, particularly the Red Bulls, were incredibly quick through the long runs ... It is what it is. We'll fight as hard as we can but I doubt we'll find something between now and tomorrow. But if we do, great."
Mercedes also failed to equal the record of 23 straight poles set by Williams in 1992 and 1993 and Hamilton's front row run ended at 20.
An ecstatic Vettel said: "It's unbelievable. I know it is only Saturday and the main job is tomorrow, but I had to enjoy the moment. The car was fantastic to drive and got better through qualifying. I was surprised by the margin, but it just came together."
A wide-smiling Ricciardo added: It is nice to be back up here. Being on the front row has been a while. It is good. It should be a good race tomorrow. To have no Mercedes up here was a surprise. I thought they were playing a few card games yesterday."
Meanwhile, as Red Bull moved further away from Renault, and closer to doing a deal with Ferrari for next year, their team principal, Christian Horner, had to field questions about his longer term plans.
He said: "It's very interesting to see the speculation about the VW/Audi group. It's great they are showing interest in Formula One, but anything beyond that is purely speculation. For any manufacturer to start from scratch and to build a competitive engine you are talking two to three years. So if they come in the long term it's potentially an exciting prospect, but it doesn't solve today's problem."
But Horner was speaking just before one of Red Bull's most convincing qualifying sessions of the season, Kazinform refers to The Guardian.com.
