Rubens Barrichello took sixth for Williams, Nico Rosberg seventh for Mercedes; Robert Kubica put this Renault eighth, and Michael Schumacher, hounded by rumors or early retirement, got Mercedes its second top-10 grid spot with ninth. Kamui Kobyashi completes the top 10 in his Sauber.
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa stopped on track in the first qualifying session with electrical failure in the gearbox. He will be starting form the back of the grid. Fernando Alonso had electrical problems also; lucky for him, he was able to bring the car in for a system reboot, which got him back out in time to take the pole.
The damp circuit gave a few drivers some exciting moments. Almost half the circuit has been resurfaced since last year, and the new sections didn’t dry as quickly. Because the Singapore sessions are run at night, the track stays wet after afternoon or evening showers. Also, the artificial lighting made it hard for drivers to tell where the wet patches were.
Alonso said the damp track kept him from having full confidence in the car in practice.
“Some parts of the circuit seemed to remain damp during the weekend, so we had to qualify not completely 100 percent confident in the car in some of the corners,” Alonso said in the post-qualifying press conference. “We built up confidence in Q1, Q2 and then in Q3 we tried to push the limits.
“I was quite happy with my lap. I didn’t know if it was enough to be on pole, second or fourth but I think we got 100 percent out of the car today that was the main target for us.”
Massa’s problem was still a mystery at the end of qualifying, but it might have been related to certain experiments Ferrari were trying with the engine-management system.
“We tried to understand Felipe’s problem looking at the telemetry; until the cart is back probably we will not know. We were running with some experimental things here and obviously after Felipe’s problem we went back to the standard one,” Alonso explained.
Alonso’s lap of 1:45:39 gave him only a six-hundredths lead over second-place Sebastian Vettel’s 1:45:457.
Vettel Second, Says Car Has More
“It was a pretty messy qualifying for us I think we had a smooth practice yesterday and this morning and this afternoon we never really got into the rhythm we always had a little traffic and just didn’t get it into one lap as I did in practice,” Vettel said.
Vettel ran up against Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes on his first Q3 run, and nearly wrecked on his second attempt.
“I misjudged the gap to the car ahead; after four or five corners I was already in the back of Michael [Schumacher] so the first run was lost. The second run then, I was on a good lap and then in sector two—turns 11–12–13—I slightly hit the wall on the exit, lost too much time there and couldn’t recover in the last sector.
“I think we had the car to be on pole,” he continued, “but unfortunately I am second by a little amount of time. Anyway we have a very quick car for tomorrow and we should be in a very strong position.”
Vettel seems confident, but he has not been particularly strong on starts, and he has Lewis Hamilton, who has, right behind him.
McLaren Finds the High-Downforce Magic
“Not such a bad qualifying session,” Hamilton said. “I think we had perhaps a little bit more in the car but it was tricky out there, making sure you found the gap.
“I can’t really complain. I am on the clean side of the grid, and we have had the best starts for quite some time now—fingers crossed—that’ll continue tomorrow and put us in a good position.”
Hamilton felt rain could dramatically affect the race.
“I am sure tomorrow is going to be an extremely tricky race. Considering how long it took today for the track to dry I am sure if it does rain this evening or sometime tomorrow it will never dry, it takes so long.
“By the time the race comes round—fingers crossed, it doesn’t rain all day and it’s not a problem, but if it is wet then we’ve got our work cut out for sure.”
The Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix starts at 8 a.m. EDT. It will be broadcast in the United States on SPEED-TV.
