While Rubens Barrichello's late qualifying crash left several drivers in the top-10 shootout wondering what might have been, Lewis Hamilton had already laid down a decent pole marker in the first Q3 runs as McLaren's resurgence continued on Saturday in Singapore.
ITV.com/F1 expert James Allen explains why the fuel weights still confirmed Hamilton as the undisputed star of qualifying while also analysing the other key talking points from qualifying, including the reasons for Button's latest wobble.Lewis Hamilton took his third pole position of the season and the second on a street circuit in Singapore today and it was all round an excellent job by the McLaren driver who had a significantly heavier car than all his closest rivals and yet was still three tenths ahead of second-placed Sebastian Vettel.
He is thus the star of qualifying.
However, that isn’t the full story because we didn’t get the full story and we will never know what it might have been.
It was a shame that Rubens Barrichello hit the wall in the closing seconds of qualifying, because it denied us the possibility of a thrilling climax to what had been a rather mundane session up to that point.
The only thing that had really brought it alive was the performance of Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel, both of whom were on faster laps when the session was stopped.
Whether they would have got ahead of Hamilton we will never know.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner said that both his drivers were destined for the front row and with the fuel-weight advantage they had it certainly was a strategy aimed at getting the pole.
Rosberg did a stunning lap in Q2, the fastest lap of the weekend so far by some margin as Williams once again seem to have improved their car.
In Q3 he was only a tenth and a half behind Vettel with six kilos more fuel in the car which is worth two tenths.
The Williams didn’t work on the low downforce tracks in Spa and Monza, but here they are if anything even more competitive than they were before those two races.
Rosberg finished second in last year’s controversial Singapore Grand Prix and competitiveness on this type of circuit seems to be in Williams’s DNA. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him fight for the victory tomorrow.
Lewis Hamilton was many people’s prediction for pole going into the session.
He had a less than ideal preparation for the session, with his mechanics working through the night to get his car ready for today’s practice after a KERS-related electrical problem.
Like many drivers he complained of oversteer yesterday, but he got the car dialled in this morning and did a great job to top the timesheets in Q1 and Q3.
His task was helped by Barrichello’s shunt, which caused the session to be stopped with 26 seconds left on the clock.
Barrichello did his car a lot of damage.
In addition to damaging the floor with an over the kerbs excursion in Q2, he lost it in Q3 slamming into the wall with the left side of the car.
It will be a tough day tomorrow for the mechanics to get that car turned around.
It is the nature of street circuits that a major crash will bring out a safety car during the race or a red flag in qualifying.
Although there is no suggestion that Barrichello did this on purpose (heaven forbid in the current climate!) he did help his own cause by keeping Alonso and Glock behind him.
After a gearbox change in the afternoon Barrichello drops down to 10th place, which is still two places ahead of his team-mate Jenson Button, who seems to have gone back into wobbly mode after a very strong performance at Monza last time out.
Button was unhappy with a set-up change in the final practice session.
He was quick in Q1, but didn’t look at all comfortable in Q2, not wanting to commit the car in certain corners, because he didn’t like the understeer which had developed. He had a flat spot moment too, which didn’t help.
Ferrari were off the pace in qualifying, the fact that they have stopped development on this car finally catching up with them.
Kimi Raikkonen has done an amazing job to score the points he has in the last four races, but here it looks like the teams who are still pushing on 2009, like BMW and Williams, have moved in front of them.