Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) beat the Red Bull drivers to win the pole position for the Singapore Grand prix. Max Verstappen was second and Daniel Ricciardo – third in the qualifying session.
Sebastian Vettel
“Yesterday I wasn’t smiling, today I am. When you belong to a team, you need to believe in each other and this is the perfect proof. Our Friday was messy, but our team has worked all night long and I am grateful for that. Here the guys worked all night and got to sleep around breakfast time, I believe. Meanwhile, back at the factory, Charles Leclerc worked at the simulator and other people analysed the data. Yesterday it seemed that we were not competitive enough and a lot of answers were missing. At the beginning of qualifying I was just thinking about doing my job. Then in Q3 I attacked, and I am very happy it worked”.
“For us it’s important to turn up the day. If it’s a bad day, we want to change it making it a good one because we always try to have good days. I think yesterday was very important for us because we learnt from it. It was a hard lesson but we improved our understanding of the car and the track evolution came to us. Now we probably have a better idea what the car needs. There are always lessons that need to be learnt and I am quite happy that we had a bad day yesterday. We are happy we got the pole today because it always helps. But the race is tomorrow, so we’ll see what happens.”
“At the time I was convinced my lap wasn’t enough” – Sebastian Vettel#SingaporeGP pic.twitter.com/l71SIG8WT5
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 16, 2017
Max Verstappen
“All weekend has been a good build up, getting faster and faster and finding a smooth rhythm so to come away with second is a really good result. I took a little bit of risk to put down a good lap as we had predicted the others would improve from yesterday and this morning’s sessions. Perhaps there was a bit of time in the last sector to find but in general I am very pleased with how the car and I performed. That was the best balance in terms of set-up I have had with the car in Qualifying all year and that is a big positive.”
“My quickest time was more or less the maximum I could do, Sebastian just had an even better lap. Race pace is good so we have a chance tomorrow but it looks like Ferrari have found quite a lot. The start will be important and maybe if there are a couple of safety cars that could impact the result too.”
Daniel Ricciardo
“I really thought I could get on pole position today so I’m a bit disappointed to be honest. Seb’s last lap was strong and we couldn’t run with that. That pace was good for us in Q3 and it seems like he did most of his time in the first sector. I didn’t really know what else we could do. If we get the start right tomorrow then we can put some pressure on him through our strategy. I still believe we have a good chance to win this race.”
“I want this one” – @DanielRicciardo ?#SingaporeGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/pFznz3jwQe
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 16, 2017
Final timing screen for #quali at the #SingaporeGP. We are P7 with Nico & P11 with Jolyon. pic.twitter.com/5RfGeYsC5i
— Renault Sport F1 (@RenaultSportF1) September 16, 2017
