Hamilton, sparkling pole-sitter in Singapore!

While we expected a walk in the park for the Team Ferrari after its results in Free Practice 3, Mercedes hit the bull's eye with the Silver Arrow of a Hamilton sparkling, sublime in his first flying lap in Q3, finished in 1'36'015.

A performance which knocked out all his opponents and a time on which they all came to blows during the last attempts. This is the 79th career pole for the four-time world champion, the 7th this season. All on a terrain where Mercedes has struggled in recent seasons. 

The performance of Max Verstappen is also to be saluted as its Red Bull seemed behind at the end of FP3. The Dutchman, who has also regularly complained of problems with his Renaut engine, fails at more than three tenths of the reference time but sticks almost as much to Hag, who had to settle for 3rd place. 

The German, first in the last free runs late Saturday afternoon, is ahead of his teammate Kimi Räikkönen by just a tenth. Valtteri Bottas follows in 5th position for Mercedes while Daniel Ricciardo cannot do better than 6th at Red Bull. 

Sergio Pérez celebrates his first entry into Q3 with a fine 7th place. Esteban Ocon completes the happiness of Force India, which brought significant developments this weekend, by claiming the 9th fastest time. Between them slips the Haas an Romain Grosjean in great spirits over the last Grands Prix. Small consolation for Renault, Nico Hulkenberg completes the Top 10 with the highest ranked RS18.

In Q2, the intermediate phase of qualifying which determines the rubber with which the drivers start the race, Ferrari briefly takes the gamble of using Ultra-Softs. Vettel and Räikkönen, however, quickly realized that the compound with purple sidewalls was much less efficient than its counterpart with pink stripes, and the two drivers quickly switched back to Hyper-Softs. 

For a small tenth compared to Ocon, Fernando Alonso stops in Q2. A performance that the pilot McLaren receives a sober “Nice” on the radio. His future replacement at Woking, Carlos Sainz, also falls by the wayside in the company of the two Sauber drivers. Charles Leclerc goes for a little smack at the wall but still manages to push back Marcus Ericsson by more than seven tenths for his first visit to the city-state. Pierre Gasly ranks 15th, a good distance from his opponents. 

As is often the case this season, Q1 proves fatal for both drivers Williams, Sergey Sirotkin in front Lance stroll, as well as Stoffel Vandoorne who also went to kiss the wall with his McLaren to continue a decidedly dark season. They are accompanied in the cart by Brendon Hartley (Toro Rosso) and Kevin Magnussen, which represents a certain surprise given the potential of the Haas. Hamilton did not go far from the correctional during this first phase of qualifying since he finished it in 14th place with Ultra-Soft tires worn to the wire. 

With three drivers from three different teams at the top of the grid, including the two great rivals in the world championship, this augurs well for an electric show under the Marina Bay spotlights. The Singapore Grand Prix start will be given at 20:10 p.m. local time (14:10 p.m. in France), you will be able to watch it live with commentary on CARhebdo.com.