F1 Singapore Grand Prix 2015: Sebastian Vettel seals pole position as Mercedes struggle with Lewis Hamilton fifth and Nico Rosberg sixth

Daniel Ricciardo and Kimi Raikkonen make up the top three after an unusual qualifying saw the Silver Arrows miss out

“1.1sec off, yeah?” Lewis Hamilton asked his engineer Pete Bonnington at the end of the final practice session here, and the incredulity in his voice told you everything about Mercedes’ sudden reversal of fortune even before Sebastian Vettel then demoralised everyone with Ferrari’s first pole position since Germany in 2012, and his own first since Brazil 2013.

 Vettel’s partner Kimi Raikkonen was third, and the resurgent Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat second and fourth. Hamilton was only fifth on the grid. Team-mate Nico Rosberg was sixth.

That Ferrari and Red Bull would be fast round the tricky floodlit Singapore track was a given.  But the surprise was just how badly Mercedes underperformed.

They headed Friday’s first practice session, but thereafter got hammered.   So spectacular was the decline that Vettel, pictured left, was convinced they were sandbagging. They weren’t.

The German was delighted with his best lap. “You need to be confident in your car here. It’s a street circuit and the better you feel, the closer you can get to the walls, and it’s a place where the driver can make a difference.”

So what did go wrong at Mercedes?   Pirelli had issued new minimum tyre pressures. In Italy the fronts had to be 21 psi, the rears 19.5. Here, the respective figures were 18 and 17, which effectively widened the window of adjustment. But while Ferrari and Red Bull thrived, Mercedes struggled.

Ferrari smell blood.  “To be perfectly honest we don’t mind not having them up here,” Vettel said. “We thought yesterday and this morning that they were sandbagging, because they have the strongest package this year. They are difficult to beat so they must have some issues, which is why they are not feeling comfortable, but I don’t think you can rule them out for tomorrow. But they’ve been way too comfortable for too long, and for rest of season we will now go maximum attack.”

Mercedes chief Toto Wolffsaid that his team needs to get a grip, literally.  “I think it’s not the speed of the car, because a car doesn’t deteriorate from one weekend to the next with a good engine and good downforce,” he said.

“From Friday onwards, we haven’t been able to translate it on the track; we were lacking grip. You start with a certain simulation and what you expect from the track and how you want to set up the car, and it somehow didn’t work for us. We took a wrong direction in the first place, and again last night trying to fix things. We cannot switch the tyres on either for single-lap speed runs or on the long runs.

“We are very surprised. We’ve been very good for two years now. This was a massive step backwards. We cannot expect any miracles here. The best we can hope for is to get into the top four if there are incidents for others.”

Unless a Mercedes wins tonight, we may have to wait a week to see if the Silver Arrows really have had their sharpness blunted by the tyre pressure clarifications. And if that is indeed the case, the world championship fight might just have been re-ignited.

Source : http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/motor-racing/f1-singapore-grand-prix-2015-sebastian-vettel-seals-pole-position-as-mercedes-struggle-with-lewis-hamilton-fifth-and-nico-rosberg-sixth-10509193.html

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