As usual, the night was warm and humid at the Singapore street circuit.  Despite it being 9pm, it was still in the mid-80s with high humidity.  Not for nothing do they say that this is the hardest race physically for the drivers.  So who faced down this sweaty monster?  Who conquered its 23 turns?  Here's the provisional grid for tomorrow's Grand Prix of Singapore:

Pos	Driver	Car	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:39.403	1:37.344	1:36.015
2	DH Verstappen	Red Bull Racing	1:38.751	1:37.214	1:36.334
3	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:38.218	1:37.876	1:36.628
4	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1:39.291	1:37.254	1:36.702
5	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:38.534	1:37.194	1:36.794
6	Smiley Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing	1:38.153	1:37.406	1:36.996
7	Lawsuit Perez	Force India Mercedes	1:38.814	1:38.342	1:37.985
8	Lettuce Grosjean	Haas Ferrari	1:38.685	1:38.367	1:38.320
9	False Esteban!	Force India Mercedes	1:38.912	1:38.534	1:38.365
10	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1:38.932	1:38.450	1:38.588
11	I Dunno Alonso	McLaren Renault	1:39.022	1:38.641
12	Carlos Sainz	Renault	1:39.103	1:38.716
13	CharlesAMX-30	Sauber Ferrari	1:39.206	1:38.747
14	Sony Ericsson	Sauber Ferrari	1:39.366	1:39.453
15	Pierre Ghastly	Toro Rosso	1:39.614	1:39.691
16	DP Magnussen	Haas Ferrari	1:39.644
17	Brendon Hartley	Toro Rosso	1:39.809
18	Stoffelwaffle	McLaren Renault	1:39.864
19	Sergey Sirotkin	Williams Mercedes	1:41.263
20	Veruca Stroll	Williams Mercedes	1:41.334

On a night where the preferred tires were taking two laps to warm up, and where the fastest tires would die if you pushed them hard for an entire lap, Ferrari spit the bit.  Going in, there was no reason to think that at least Vettel would be on the front row.  Instead, Red Bull discovered that if you press the right-hand pedal, the car goes faster.

And then, there was Lewis.  After nearly failing to making it out of Q1 due to a Mercedes tactical error, he turned in a Lap For The Ages.  Where it came from is unknown... even the team was baffled.  "Magic," said Lewis.  "Sprinkled with stardust" was team principal Toto Wolff's description.  "F*ck off and die," was Seb Vettel's take.  And it came on his first hot lap, too.  It was just left there, waiting for someone to knock it off.  Nobody did.  Nobody could. 

How astonishing was this lap?  Of course it's a new lap record, that's been happening all season.  But it was better than THREE SECONDS faster than last year's pole time.  All this in a car that, frankly, had looked a little dog-like this weekend. 

The grid does look awfully entertaining however... and look who's sitting in the second spot: DH Verstappen.  Last year his presence led to both Ferraris crashing out, essentially on the first turn.  And here we see an increasingly desperate appearing Seb Vettel in third, knowing that with seven races left he needs very badly to outrace Hamilton if he wants a chance to win the championship.  I'm almost expecting a lot of red and pewter carbon fiber to be spewed in the first corner.

Race is in the morning, see ya afterwards!

Posted by: Ben at September 15, 2018 04:12 PM (4TRZx)

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