F1 2016: Rosberg to start his 200th GP from pole in Singapore

After setting a blistering time in qualifying, Nico Rosberg will start his 200th grand prix in Singapore from from pole with a margin of over half a second on Daniel Ricciardo who will start along side him on the front row. Lewis Hamilton will start from the second row in third place.

At the Marina Bay Street Circuit for the qualifying session of the 2016 Singapore Grand Prix, Ferrari started off on the back foot after Sebastian Vettel retiring from the session in Q1 after having mechanical problems. Vettel started from pole in Singapore in last year, but will start right at the other end of the grid from last place for the race tomorrow.

During the final stages of the second qualifying session Romain Grosjean who had been struggling with the set up of his Haas F1 car, spun out and hit the barriers, and Jenson Button clipping the wall left him with a puncture and a damaged suspension and the session was double yellow flagged. While the Williams drivers – Felipe Massa and Valterri Bottas slowed down due to the flags, Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg set faster lap times to eliminate the Williams’ from the final session of qualifying.

On the first run in Q3, Rosberg set an unbelievable time of 1:42.584 while the best Hamilton could do is seven tenths slower to become second fastest, as Kimi Raikkonen in the sole Ferrari in Q3 was nearly a second slower in third.

But on the final runs, everyone’s target was to get as high up as they could, but Rosberg’s time seemed too quick to beat even for the German himself. Hamilton put in a lap he would rather forget, as he went wide into turn 1 and rode the kerb in the second sector, failing improve his time. Leaving him vulnerable to the Red Bulls and Raikkonen.

Ricciardo however was the only driver who was able to capitalise on Hamilton’s mistake and and went two tenth faster to steal Hamilton’s 100^th front row start. Verstappen after a poor lap on his first run in Q3, was only slightly slower than Hamilton but managed to better Raikkonen’s time and was into fourth place for the race.

It was all down to the Iceman (Raikkonen) right at the end to dethrone the Red Bull’s and Hamilton. But he couldn’t manage to better his time and will start the race from fifth on the grid.

Following him in the top ten on the grid will be Sainz, Kvyat, Hulkenberg, Alonso and Perez respectively.

2016 F1 Singapore GRAND PRIX QUALIFYING (17/09/2016) Marina Bay Street Circuit – 5,067KM, 23 TURNS

POS	DRIVER	CAR	Q3	LAPS
1	Nico Rosberg	MERCEDES	1:42.548	12
2	Daniel Ricciardo	RED BULL RACING TAG HEUER	1:43.115	12
3	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	1:43.288	12
4	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING TAG HEUER	1:43.328	12
5	Kimi Räikkönen	FERRARI	1:43.540	12
6	Carlos Sainz	TORO ROSSO FERRARI	1:44.197	14
7	Daniil Kvyat	TORO ROSSO FERRARI	1:44.469	15
8	Nico Hulkenberg	FORCE INDIA MERCEDES	1:44.479	17
9	Fernando Alonso	MCLAREN HONDA	1:44.553	15
10	Sergio Perez	FORCE INDIA MERCEDES	1:44.582	20
11	Valtteri Bottas**	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:44.740	11
12	Felipe Massa**	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:44.991	11
13	Jenson Button**	MCLAREN HONDA	1:45.144	13
14	Esteban Gutierrez**	HAAS FERRARI	1:45.593	12
15	Romain Grosjean**	HAAS FERRARI	1:45.723	11
16	Marcus Ericsson**	SAUBER FERRARI	1:47.827	12
17	Kevin Magnussen*	RENAULT	1:46.825	9
18	Felipe Nasr*	SAUBER FERRARI	1:46.860	8
19	Jolyon Palmer*	RENAULT	1:46.960	9
20	Pascal Wehrlein*	MRT MERCEDES	1:47.667	8
21	Esteban Ocon*	MRT MERCEDES	1:48.296	9
22	Sebastian Vettel*	FERRARI	1:49.116	4

*Eliminated after Q1

**Eliminated after Q2