Nico Rosberg claims Pole Positon for the Singapore GP

In qualifying for the Singapore GP, Nico Rosberg claims Pole Position ahead of his 200th GP start ahead of Daniel Ricciardo and his team mate Lewis Hamilton in a session that started off brilliantly but then edged out towards the end of Q3.

In an action-packed qualifying session, we saw in Q1 Nico Rosberg topping the timesheets first, Kimi Raikkonen then topping the timesheets with a great lap. But it was Daniel Ricciardo who astonished us all with a stonker of a lap time that saw him replace Raikkonen at the top of the timesheets.

As Ricciardo was leading during Q1, his ex-team mate Sebastian Vettel went from scoring Pole Position last year to being at the back of the grid and out of Q1 with suspected rear suspension issues which meant that he could not get all four wheels on the circuit.

Q2 saw Rosberg bouncing back from Ricciardo's amazing lap in Q1 and was at the top of the timesheets. All eyes were upon Ricciardo during the session to see if he could challenge the Mercedes drivers at the front but could only manage third just behind Lewis Hamilton who managed to finish in second as we headed into a tantalizing Q3 session.

But it was the end of Q2 that had our attention as fans. Haas driver Romain Grosjean going into Turn 14 hit the barriers after locking the rear axle under braking. This then brought out the yellow flags as Grosjean looked to get out of the car but Grosjean sounded a bit winded on team radio after the incident but got out of the car okay. As this was happening, Jenson Button stopped on the track with problems with his McLaren-Honda after brushing the wall and had to be pushed by the marshals off the circuit into the escape road.

Q3 was then delayed for ten minutes in order to fix the barriers to where Grosjean had his spin in Turn 14. But out of the five main contenders for the Pole Position shootout (Ricciardo, Verstappen, Raikkonen, Hamilton and Rosberg) Ricciardo drew blood first but then Ricciardo managed to beat that time by just over a second and showing really good pace around the Marina Bay circuit.

Heading into the last five minutes of Q3, we wondered if Rosberg's lap time would be beaten by any of the four remaining and realistic challengers for Pole Position. But the end of Q3 saw the action dying down with Hamilton on his final lap ran wide into Turn 1 and had a poor middle sector and no one else had the pace or performance to beat Rosberg.

But it was Nico Rosberg claimed Pole Position for the Singapore GP with a lap time of 1:42.584 ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in an amazing second place who was 0.531 seconds behind him and ahead of Lewis Hamilton in third place who was 0.704 seconds behind Rosberg.

Max Verstappen qualified in fourth place ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in fifth place, Carlos Sainz Jr in sixth place, Daniil Kvyat in seventh place, Nico Hulkenberg in eighth place,

Fernando Alonso in ninth place and Sergio Perez who rounded off the top ten finishers.
Valtteri Bottas qualified from the Singapore GP in eleventh place ahead of Felipe Massa in twelfth place, Jenson Button in thirteenth place, Esteban Gutierrez in fourteenth place and Romain Grosjean in fifteenth place.

As we head into the latter stages of the grid, Marcus Ericsson qualified in sixteenth place ahead of Kevin Magnussen in seventeenth place, Felipe Nasr in eighteenth place, Jolyon Palmer in nineteenth place, Pascal Wehrlein in twentieth place, Esteban Ocon in twenty-first place and Sebastian Vettel in twenty second place.

The classification of Qualifying for the Singapore GP is as follows:-

1. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1.42.584
2. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull-TAG Heuer, 0.531s
3. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 0.704s
4. Max Verstappen, Red-Bull-TAG Heuer, 0.744s
5. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 0.956s
6. Carlos Sainz Jr, Toro Rosso, 1.613s
7. Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso, 1.885s
8. Nico Hulkenberg, Force India-Mercedes, 1.895s
9. Fernando Alonso, McLaren-Honda, 1.969s
10. Sergio Perez, Force India-Mercedes, 1.988s
11. Valtteri Bottas, Williams-Mercedes, 1.44.170
12. Felipe Massa, Williams-Mercedes, 1.44.991
13. Jenson Button, McLaren-Honda, 1.45.144
14. Esteban Gutierrez, Haas Ferrari, 1.45.593
15. Romain Grosjean, Haas Ferrari, 1.45.723
16. Marcus Ericsson, Sauber-Ferrari, 1.45.827
17. Kevin Magnussen, Renault, 1.46.825
18. Felipe Nasr, Sauber-Ferrari, 1.46.860
19. Jolyon Palmer, Renault, 1.46.960
20. Pascal Wehrlein, MRT Racing, 1.47.667
21. Esteban Ocon, MRT Racing, 1.48.298
22. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, 1.49.116

Sarah Jones- @jonesy_laaap.