Vettel started on pole position for last year’s Singapore Grand Prix, and was one of the favourites to take the win this year, thanks to his stellar record of four wins in eight years at Marina Bay.
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Lewis Hamilton will start in third at the Singapore Grand Prix, after a crucial error in final practice handed the initiative to championship rival and Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg.
“I am definitely happy with that one for my 200th Grand Prix”, he said.
“I knew I had to give it everything and pull one out of the bag, which is cool”.
The Red Bull of Max Verstappen never seemed in contention.
Last year’s victor Sebastian Vettel will start from the back of the grid, the German complaining over the radio of an anti-rollbar issue in the first qualifying session with his Ferrari team unable to fix the auto in time to set a fast lap.
Then I wanted to come into the box, but in the end we made a decision to stay out, and then we came in because it was hopeless anyway, we were just not quick enough, and there was no time within three or four minutes to fix the problem. “We are wasting time”. Rosberg claimed afterwards. “It really went well, and I wasn’t quite clear on how we were going to stack up against Red Bull for example, and they were very quick on the super softs for example”.
“Nico did a great job and showed the true potential of the auto”. I would say we are but surprised we are the only ones. We did that thinking it would be the right thing but we didn’t get a chance to see it with the wet start.
“I would love to win it – we’ve created an opportunity starting on the front row”.
Hamilton, who has struggled all weekend, added: “It wasn’t really a frustrating session, it’s just not been my weekend so far”.
“It is a track where you need a real good rhythm and I haven’t been in a rhythm all weekend”, Hamilton said.
“Hopefully we can stay out of trouble and get that victory”.
Mercedes chief Toto Wolff said the lack of sustained track mileage meant the team had “failed” to find the correct set-up for Hamilton’s auto. He was in better spirits during the final practice as he laughed over the team radio about nearly hitting a large monitor lizard that scuttled across the circuit.
Toro Rosso driver Carlos Sainz took the sixth position while his teammate Daniil Kvyat finished seventh.
Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg qualified eighth and McLaren’s Fernando Alonso ninth.
Haas’ Romain Grosjean also had a night to forget, after his vehicle crashed at Turn 10 during the second qualifying session.
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“The auto was behaving pretty decently, apart from obviously lacking a bit of grip overall, but there weren’t issues that we could have fixed to suddenly go faster, apart from adding overall grip”.
