Lewis Hamilton sets blistering lap to take Singapore GP pole

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton put in one of the best qualifying laps of his career to take a suprising Singapore Grand Prix pole position ahead of Sunday's race. Singapore has not traditionally favoured Mercedes cars, but Hamilton conjured up a blistering lap to take a surpising pole position, clocking a 1:36.015, over three seconds faster than Vettel's pole time from last year. This is the 79th pole of Hamilton's career.

Early in the qualifying session, it did not look like Mercedes would emerge quickest. Daniel Ricciardo finished quickest in Q1 in his Red Bull, ahead of the two Ferraris of Vettel and Raikonnen. Q2 saw Raikonnen go quickest after Ferrari abandoned its strategy to try the ultrasoft tyres and send its drivers back out with the hypersoft tyres. Verstappen placed second, while the two Mercedes of Bottas and Hamilton came third and fourth. 

However, in the third qualifying session, Hamilton set a blistering time on his very first flying lap, prompting his race engineer to call it a 'pretty epic lap'. Verstsappen came second, calling his lap the best he'd ever done. Meanwhile, Vettel had difficulty in setting a quick time, running into traffic on his flying lap and only managing to qualify third. 

As a result, Hamilton will be starting the 2018 Formula One Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix from pole position, ahead of Verstappen and Vettel. Hamilton will be looking to consolidate on his pole position and score a back-to-back victory, after winning last year's chaotic race. This would also allow him to further extend his lead at the top of the driver's championship. 

1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:36.015
2	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1:36.334
3	Sebastien Vettel	Ferrari	1:36.628
4	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1:36.702
5	Kimi Raikonnen	Ferrari	1:36.794
6	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:36.996
7	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:37.985
8	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:38.320
9	Esteban Ocon	Force India	1:38.365
10	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1:38.588
11	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:38.641
12	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Renault	1:38.716
13	Charles Leclerc	Sauber	1:38.747
14	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:39.453
15	Pierre Gasly	Toro Rosso	1:39.691
16	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	1:39.644
17	Brandon Hartley	Toro Rosso	1:39.809
18	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren	1:39.864
19	Sergey Sirotkin	Williams	1:41.263
20	Lance Stroll	Williams	1:41.334