Singapore GP. Qualifying Report. McLaren's Lewis Hamilton followed up his earlier practice promise by taking pole position for tomorrow's Singapore Grand Prix under the lights, as the title-chasing Brawn GP team fell apart in a number of new and interesting ways. As this bizarre, perplexing and frustrating mess of a season draws to a close, the Brawn GP men, who are now effectively the only title contenders, still showed no signs of doing things properly to give the pretence that this is in any way a competent season, as Jenson Button found himself failing to even make the top ten shootout and Rubens Barrichello brought the session to a premature end after visiting the wall with his own car.
Barrichello, who was already suffering car damage from an earlier trip over a chicane, stuffed his BGP001 into the concrete surroundings of the track with 26 seconds to go in Q3, forcing the session to be red flagged, which doesn't sound like much, but meant that everyone's final runs were ruined.
Hamilton, then, took pole on the strength of his first run, securing his third pole of the season and his second in a row for the McLaren team, after he topped the final practice session of the weekend earlier in the day.
Sebastian Vettel took a surprise front row for Red Bull in second place, at a track where the team were expecting to struggle. He finished just ahead of one of the stars of qualifying, Nico Rosberg, who topped Q2 with a blistering lap and stuck his Williams in third for the grid proper, just ahead of Mark Webber in the second Red Bull, who nearly bowed out in Q2, but snaffled in a quick lap right at the death to escape the drop.
Barrichello ended fifth despite his late prang, but he will drop to tenth for the race tomorrow after finally having to change his troublesome gearbox, which gave him a five place penalty. Fernando Alonso was sixth on his return to the scene of his dubious 2008 victory, while Timo Glock had an impressive afternoon in his naff Toyota with 7th.
The two BMW Saubers continued their late-race renaissance with 8th and 9th, while Heikki Kovalainen ended Q3 in bottom spot in 10th place.
So no championship leader in Q3, and that was because Jenson Button took time out of moaning over the radio for no reason to limp to 12th place, behind even Kazuki Nakajima in his Williams. Although Button will now get to choose his fuel strategy from such a lowly spot, he may well need a bit of luck tomorrow to score any meaningful points.
Also out in Q2 was Kimi Raikkonen, the Ferrari looking glorious under the lights but failing to match those looks with any real grunt. He starts 13th, ahead of Sebastien Buemi's Toro Rosso and Jarno Trulli in the second of the Toyotas.
Raikkonen at least did better than his latest stand-in teammate, with Giancarlo Fisichella being eliminated right at the start of the session. He will line up an impotent 18th. The two Force India cars, back down to reality after their last two races in the spotlight, joined Fisi in sitting out the rest of the session, along with tentative newbies Jamie Alguersuari and Romain Grosjean.
So the Red Bulls keep their own faint hopes of an unlikely championship success alive, while Brawn GP look set for another afternoon on the back foot tomorrow. And Lewis Hamilton starts ahead of the lot of them. F1 2009 remains it's own deliciously silly self.
| Qualifying Times | |||
| Pos | Driver | Car | Time |
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren - Mercedes | 1:47.891 |
| 2 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull - Renault | 1:48.204 |
| 3 | Nico Rosberg | Williams - Toyota | 1:48.348 |
| 4 | Mark Webber | Red Bull - Renault | 1:48.722 |
| 5 | Rubens Barrichello*** | Brawn - Mercedes | 1:48.828 |
| 6 | Fernando Alonso | Renault | 1:49.054 |
| 7 | Timo Glock | Toyota | 1:49.180 |
| 8 | Nick Heidfeld | BMW Sauber | 1:49.307 |
| 9 | Robert Kubica | BMW Sauber | 1:49.514 |
| 10 | Heikki Kovalainen | McLaren - Mercedes | 1:49.778 |
| 11* | Kazuki Nakajima | Williams - Toyota | 1:47.013 |
| 12* | Jenson Button | Brawn - Mercedes | 1:47.141 |
| 13* | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1:47.177 |
| 14* | Sebastien Buemi | Toro Rosso - Ferrari | 1:47.369 |
| 15* | Jarno Trulli | Toyota | 1:47.413 |
| 16** | Adrian Sutil | Force India - Mercedes | 1:48.231 |
| 17** | Jamie Alguersuari | Toro Rosso - Ferrari | 1:48.340 |
| 18** | Giancarlo Fisichella | Ferrari | 1:48.350 |
| 19** | Romain Grosjean | Renault | 1:48.544 |
| 20** | Vitantonio Liuzzi | Force India - Mercedes | 1:48.792 |
* - Out in second session
** - Out in first session
*** - Barrichello will take a 5 place grid penalty for a gearbox change
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