Kamui takes off, Vettel P1 - Qualifying as it Happened
by Adam Milleneuve on Sep 24th, 2011The Singapore Grand Prix has a fair bit of magic about it. For one, it's a street circuit. We like street circuits. For another, it's F1 racing under lights in the depths of the night. We also like that.
Qualifying is especially important for this race because, as with Monaco, overtaking isn't easy and being behind slower cars for any amount of time can destroy a driver's chances of a points finish.
So, without further ado, here's qualifying as it happened...
credit: sutton-images.com
Round 1 - Petrov knocked out as Renault fail to deliver
The first round of qualifying saw the usual crop of Lotus, Marussia Virgin and Hispania filling the final six places on the grid but, unusually and for the first time this season, Lotus Renault GP driver Vitaly Petrov joined them in being knocked out in round 1. Renault are indeed struggling - they removed upgrades planned for Singapore after overheating problems and will no doubt have their work cut out to turn the weekend around.
Knocked Out: 18th - Petrov, 19th - Kovalainen, 20th - Trulli, 21st - Glock, 22nd - d'Ambrosio, 23rd - Ricciardo, 24th - Liuzzi
Round 2 - Kobayashi takes off and bows out in style
A hectic second round saw the red flag fall with 9 minutes remaining after Kamui Kobayashi took off over the famous Singapore kerbs and binned his Sauber into the wall.
Thankfully he was ok, but he'll be down in 17th for the race tomorrow. Kamui's team mate Sergio Perez nearly squeezed into the top 10, but ended the session in 11th after Paul Di Resta snaffled the last Q3 spot to join his team mate Adrian Sutil in the final round.
Lewis Hamilton had an eventful session, rolling into the pits towards the end with a rear puncture. Thankfully for him his best time secured him a place in Q3 along with his team mate, the Red Bulls, the Ferraris, both Mercedes cars and the aforementioned Force India drivers.
Knocked Out: 11th - Perez, 12th - Barrichello, 13th - Maldonado, 14th - Buemi, 15th - Senna, 16th - Alguersuari, 17th - Kobayashi
Round 3 - Vettel edges closer to title glory with yet another pole position
Sebastian Vettel's first flying lap was enough to secure pole position, his 11th in 2011. During the second run, Webber managed to grab 2nd place and Button 3rd, pushing Hamilton down to 4th. Neither of the Force India drivers took part in the final round of qualifying, in order to allow them to start on their choice of tyre and save a set of the soft tyres.
Ferrari had nothing left to throw at McLaren and Red Bull, taking 5th and 6th with Alonso and Massa respectively. Rosberg again out-qualified Schumacher to see Mercedes GP line up 7th and 8th.
The Starting Grid for Sunday:
 | Sebastian Vettel | |||
| Row 1 | Red Bull |  | Mark Webber | |
| 1'44.381 | Red Bull | |||
| 1'44.732 | ||||
 | Jenson Button | |||
| Row 2 | McLaren |  | Lewis Hamilton | |
| 1'44.804 | McLaren | |||
| 1'44.809 | ||||
 | Fernando Alonso | |||
| Row 3 | Ferrari |  | Felipe Massa | |
| 1'44.874 | Ferrari | |||
| 1'45.800 | ||||
 | Nico Rosberg | |||
| Row 4 | Mercedes |  | M.Schumacher | |
| 1'46.013 | Mercedes | |||
| - | ||||
 | Adrian Sutil | |||
| Row 5 | Force India |  | Paul Di Resta | |
| - | Force India | |||
| - | ||||
 | Sergio Perez | |||
| Row 6 | Sauber |  | R.Barrichello | |
| 1'47.616 | Williams | |||
| 1'48.082 | ||||
 | Pastor Maldonado | |||
| Row 7 | Williams |  | Sebastien Buemi | |
| 1'48.270 | Toro Rosso | |||
| 1'48.634 | ||||
 | Nick Heidfeld | |||
| Row 8 | Renault |  | J.Alguersuari | |
| 1'48.662 | Toro Rosso | |||
| 1'49.862 | ||||
 | Kamui Kobayashi | |||
| Row 9 | Sauber |  | Vitaly Petrov | |
| - | Renault | |||
| 1'49.835 | ||||
 | H.Kovalainen | |||
| Row 10 | Lotus |  | Jarno Trulli | |
| 1'50.948 | Lotus | |||
| 1'51.012 | ||||
 | Timo Glock | |||
| Row 11 | Virgin |  | J.D'Ambrosio | |
| 1'52.154 | Virgin | |||
| 1'52.363 | ||||
| [no pic] | Daniel Ricciardo | |||
| Row 12 | HRT |  | Vitantonio Liuzzi | |
| 1'52.404 | HRT | |||
| 1'52.810 |
Comments and Discussion
Nick Heidfeld
Row 8 Renault
I knew there's something strange in Bruno's driving.
It's disappointing to see teams not puting in laps to save tyres, but it's all caused from silly restrictive rules. I believe it would be better to remove the rule that forces the top-ten to race on worn tyres form qualifying.. and possibly to give everyone freedom to use their tyre sets during the weekend (now they have to give back some sets used in free practice)
I believe that with simpler rules (the ones I wrote are an example, we could throw in a removal of the parc-ferme) F1 would be more interesting, even on a strategical point of view!
Qualifying tyres should solve most of the issues, an idea floating around for 2012. Just as long as the teams are provided with enough sets for Quali; 3 should do it. If they're given 2 sets then the situation will be the same as this year.
I have more of a problem with teams not putting any time in at all. There should be penalties for that unless they have a legitimate problem with the car.
Looking at you Force India. Perez would've put a time in in Q3 regardless, but you knocked him out then decided to contribute to ruining the show of Q3.
And Di Resta's got to start thinking for himself rather than relying on the team for everything. Yes they can be a good scapegoat for if things go wrong but he's coming off as a puppet every time he fails to take responsibility for anything.