Lewis Hamilton claimed his second successive pole position at the Singapore Grand Prix after a crash from title challenger Rubens Barrichello brought qualifying to an early end under the lights at Marina Bay.
The McLaren man held provisional pole after topping the first Q3 runs by just over 0.2s from Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Williams’s Nico Rosberg, but both his rivals were in the middle of quicker final laps which would have threatened Hamilton’s position with the Briton in turn just about to start his own final run.
However, what was set to be a tantalising climax to the session never played out after 37-year-old Barrichello slammed into the wall at turn five after losing control of his BGP 001 under braking after appearing to hit a big bump.
At the time the Brazilian veteran was trying to improve on – or perhaps more realistically hold onto – his provisional fifth-place position to minimise the damage to be incurred by an impending five-place penalty for a gearbox change with Brawn surprisingly struggling for pace.
But whatever would have happened in the final 26 seconds of the session the early end to Q3 ensured that despite the grid drop relegating him to 10th, Barrichello will still start ahead of team-mate and title rival Jenson Button after the Briton endured a dismal session.
After complaining of a lack of grip in final practice, Button appeared to be in better shape for qualifying after setting the second quickest time to Hamilton in Q1.
However, Brawn’s form fell away as the pace increased on low fuel in the second session and Button appeared far from confident in his car’s handling as he made several mistakes on both of his final hot laps to wind up with only the 12th quickest time.
Indeed Barrichello looked set to join him in Q2 elimination after clouting the floor of his car at the chicane, but despite the damage produced a brilliant final lap to crucially ensure his place in Q3.
The Brazilian’s subsequent crash ensured Hamilton held onto his third pole of the season, with the threatening Vettel and Rosberg denied the chance to dislodge him.
Nevertheless Red Bull will no doubt be delighted with its positions relative to Brawn as with Mark Webber claiming fourth, it now unexpectedly has been presented with a golden chance to blast itself back into realistic title contention with a big points haul on Sunday.
Rosberg’s third position equals his best-ever in his 67-race F1 career and confirms a major return to form for Williams after its FW31 struggled badly in the low-downforce conditions of recent races.
Indeed the German was the fastest man in low-fuel Q2 after clocking a blistering lap of 1m46.197s and now surely has his best chance of finally claiming the team’s first podium finish of the season, exactly a year on from its last top three finish in Singapore.
Barrichello’s five-place penalty promoted Fernando Alonso from sixth to fifth after the Spaniard steadily improved his pace throughout the hour to give the troubled Renault team a much-needed morale booster.
Timo Glock enjoyed a strong session for Toyota and will start sixth, while the BMW duo of Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica will share the fourth row after the heavily-upgraded F1.09 delivered on its practice promise.
The second McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen is almost certain to have qualified much heavier on fuel than his pole-sitting team-mate after lapping almost two seconds slower than Hamilton’s time, the Finn to start alongside the relegated Barrichello on row five.
The Brazilian’s title rival Button is two places back, with the second Williams of Kazuki Nakajima to start between the two Brawns.
While the Brackley squad’s day was unexpectedly dismal, Ferrari had been fearing a tough qualifying session after running outside the top-10 for most of practice and so it turned out for the Scuderia.
The in-form Kimi Raikkonen did his best to hustle the F60 around the 3.15-mile circuit but couldn’t prevent his first Q2 elimination since Spain and will start 13th, while Giancarlo Fisichella didn’t get beyond the first stage.
Toro Rosso will be happy with its Q2 position after Sebastien Buemi impressively claimed 14th, the Swiss outqualifying Jarno Trulli who unusually fell a long way short of Toyota team-mate Glock over a single quali lap.
Force India, meanwhile, suffered something of a reality check following its sensational front-running form at Spa and Monza as both of its drivers were knocked out in Q1.
Monza front-row starter Adrian Sutil just missed out on the second stage in terms of position in 16th, but he would have needed to have produced a time over half a second quicker to have progressed.
And after impressing the paddock with his performance on his F1 return after two years away a fortnight ago, the sister car of Tonio Liuzzi was slowest of all on his first experience of the physically-demanding Singapore streets.
Jamie Alguersuari couldn’t match STR team-mate Buemi’s efforts, but nevertheless the 17th-fastest time equals the best grid slot of the 19-year-old’s five-race Formula 1 career.
Indeed in a tough session for all the drivers either adapting to F1 or new teams, Fisichella experienced more difficulties in getting the best out of the Ferrari and wound up a disappointing 18th – the veteran unable to get within a second of Raikkonen.
Renault rookie Romain Grosjean will line up alongside Liuzzi on the back row in 19th after struggling with the brakes on his R29 from the off in qualifying after a new set were installed before the session.
The Frenchman enquired over the radio whether his brakes were working at all after running down the escape road at turn seven on his out-lap and despite completing 10 laps over the next 20 minutes couldn’t get near the cut line.
Singapore Grand Prix grid
1. HAMILTON McLaren
2. VETTEL Red Bull
3. ROSBERG Williams
4. WEBBER Red Bull
5. ALONSO Renault
6. GLOCK Toyota
7. HEIDFELD BMW
8. KUBICA BMW
9. KOVALAINEN McLaren
10. BARRICHELLO Brawn*
11. NAKAJIMA Williams
12. BUTTON Brawn
13. RAIKKONEN Ferrari
14. BUEMI Toro Rosso
15. TRULLI Toyota
16. SUTIL Force India
17. ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso
18. FISICHELLA Ferrari
19. GROSJEAN Renault
20. LIUZZI Force India
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