Rosberg takes pole for Singapore GP

Ricciardo finishes second while Hamilton will start today’s race in third place

SINGAPORE: Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg took pole position for his 200th Formula One race after a stunning qualifying lap around Singapore’s Marina Bay street circuit yesterday.

The German’s best lap of 1min 42.584sec left him perfectly placed to retake the championship lead from British teammate Lewis Hamilton under the floodlights today.

Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo split the Mercedes pair to claim second spot in 1:43.115, the Australian edging out triple world champion Hamilton, a two times winner in Singapore who will start in third place.



Dutch teenager Max Verstappen will start alongside Hamilton after setting the fourth fastest time for Red Bull, with the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen rounding out the top five.

Hamilton leads Rosberg by two points in the championship.

Fuming Vettel to start from back row

Sebastian Vettel was left fuming when mechanical problems knocked him out of the first round of qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix — meaning last year’s winner will start from the back of the grid.

The Ferrari driver won last year’s race from pole position for his fourth victory in Singapore, where he has topped the podium more times than anyone else.



But after limping round well off the pace in Q1, Vettel retreated to the Ferrari garage where engineers were unable to get him back on the road.

“It felt like an anti-roll bar broke but we need to have a look, what’s most important is that the second car doesn’t have damage like that,” the German told reporters.

“Obviously I was a bit annoyed because first we decided to go for another lap but it wasn’t really any quicker. Then we decided to pit to try and fix it but there was no time to do it.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 18^th, 2016.

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