Vettel pips Rosberg to pole position in Singapore // A close final run in qualifying sees Vettel watching nervously on screen
Published by Christine
Qualifying began with the usual names dropping out in the first session, along with the slightly surprising figure of Paul di Resta. The Lotus team took a gamble with Romain Grosjean, keeping him on the medium compounds when almost all of the rest of the field were on supersofts. It worked, and he got all the way through to the top ten shootout. That’s in contrast to his teammate Kimi Räikkönen, who was battling a bad back over the bumpy track and dropped out in Q2, settling for 13th on the grid.
The top ten shoot out featured Esteban Gutiérrez, in his highest qualifying to date, although he didn’t set a time in the final ten minutes. Sebastian Vettel put in a scorching lap the first time round, and he stayed in the garage for the final flying laps, watching nervously on screen.
Mark Webber set a fast first sector, as did Nico Rosberg. Webber’s time gradually dropped off and he qualified fourth, pipped at the end by Romain Grosjean. Rosberg was the closest, coming within nine hundredths of a second of Vettel’s time, but it wasn’t enough, and Sebastian took his forty-first pole position.
