Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg of Germany steers his vehicle during the qualifying session for the Singapore Formula One Grand Prix on the Marina Bay City Circuit Singapore, Saturday, Sept. 17.
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“I’m definitely happy with that one for my 200th Grand Prix”, said Rosberg in the post-qualifying press conference tonight.
Struggling terribly here one year ago, Nico Rosberg turned things around Saturday night, by posting a 1:42:584 qualifying lap to put himself on pole in his 200th grand prix for Sunday evening’s Grand Prix of Singapore at Marina Bay.
“Already in the first lap, going into turn one, something happened.” explained Vettel afterwards.
“I knew I had to give it everything and pull one out of the bag which is cool”.
It left him 1.4 seconds…
Verstappen had set the fastest time in the opening practice session and was third fastest in the second practice just shading Ricciardo.
The sister Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen could only manage the fifth fastest time behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
“We can be really proud of how much quality we have in the team”.
“We kept our heads down and a small designated group looked at the data for two days and then parked the topic and concentrated on Suzuka”.
“The gap to Mercedes is big, probably bigger than everyone expected, not just to us, but also to Red Bull”, Vettel added. “Nico did a great job and showed the real potential of the vehicle”.
“We are a bit surprised we are the only ones (on that tyre strategy)”, Ricciardo said. “But tomorrow, I think it’s going to be dry, so we’ll get a chance to see if it works”. For tomorrow we have a long race in front of us, with a lot of safety cars.
“As soon as you feel comfortable in the auto it’s a lot of lap time around this track, so the differences can be bigger if you feel comfortable.
The rhythm throughout the session was good”. Just not really got many good laps out there and I’ve not been able to string them together, and that was the case today.
“I’ve kind of been on the back foot all year so there’s no real difference to me”, Hamilton admitted.
“I think today the auto was driving me because I couldn’t feel it like I wanted to”.
Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz Jr. qualified sixth – equaling his season best – followed by teammate Daniil Kvyat in seventh. Fernando Alonso is the meat in a Force India sandwich, with Nico Hulkenberg eighth, Alonso ninth and Sergio Perez rounding out the top 10.
Romain Grosjean of Haas appeared to lock up his back wheels while in the second qualifying round and crashed heavily into the barriers, but was unhurt.
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Great display from Rosberg all weekend, securing him his 29th career pole.
