In his 200th Grand Prix weekend, Rosberg drew first blood in the Mercedes duel and took his first ever Singapore Grand Prix pole position.
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Rosberg said the fact that he could hold off the fast-charging Daniel Ricciardo at the end of the race to win by 0.4 seconds was a remarkable achievement after being nearly a second per lap off the pace a year ago.
Rosberg arrived in Singapore trailing Mercedes teammate and title rival Lewis Hamilton by just two points in the drivers’ championship, having won the last two races.
Scuderia Ferrari’s German driver Sebastian Vettel’s vehicle is seen after he retired from the qualifying session in Singapore on September 17, 2016, ahead of the Formula One Grand Prix night race.
“Then the next lap from the garage side they understood they couldn’t fix it”.
He aborted his second attempt, and while the Ferrari mechanics fiddled around with the back of his vehicle they failed to resolve the issue.
The finishing order of the top four was already in place by the end of lap one, but that disguised a thrilling finish due to some risky pit strategies.
Max Verstappen struggled to get his tyres working on both runs and finished 0.744s off Rosberg in fourth.
Behind Raikkonen, the Toro Rosso pair of Carlos Sainz and Daniil Kvyat were followed by Nico Hulkenberg (Force India), Fernando Alonso (McLaren) and Valtteri Bottas (Williams) to complete the top 10 on the starting grid.
Mercedes’ technical chief, Paddy Lowe said: “It was a terrific lap from Nico, we did not see that coming”.
The Singapore Grand Prix is live on NBCSN and the NBC Sports app from 7am ET on Sunday.
Hamilton, running fourth, came in for ultrasoft tires with 15 laps left, forcing Ferrari to hastily bring in third-placed Raikkonen the next lap, but they could not get the Finn back out quickly enough, and the move ultimately handed third to Hamilton. “Track position and safety cars can determine a lot here”.
Q2 ended with two sperarate accidents as Romain Grosjean lost the rear of his vehicle under braking at Turn 10 and hit the barriers and Jenson Button clipped the wall on the exit of Turn 14, suffering a puncture on the run down to Turn 16.
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Meanwhile, fellow Brit Jolyon Palmer was also disappointed to miss out on reaching Q2 after his Renault lost grip.
