Somebody needs to take that German bloke away and leave him there for a while, because this is starting to look painfully easy for Mr Vettel to walk all over the rest of the field there was one stage when the chap was a second faster than everyone... So the battle as we all expected it to be will be for second place - only a storm and huge amounts of rain could wash away he chances of simply vanishing off into the night tomorrow and towards the championship. However some slight arrogance on the Red Bull pitwall was almost their undoing, and there would have been some mega bonus points to anyone who stole the latest pole position away from him. Alas it wasn't to be and it is normal service, the same two teams take out the front of the grid - with the exception of one interloper - as it has been for a while now. All getting rather repetitive.
But there have been some changes to the track, on Thursday I pointed out that the slow and cumbersome turn 10 chicane has been axed from the layout in favour of a newer faster corner lined with more plastic barriers. Barriers I might add that were called into action within 4 minutes of the start of the GP2 qualifying session as Mitch Evans became the only person to crash out at this new corner. The thing is this new corner is not very good, Singapore already has a problem of having lots of very similar corners, so why on earth did they decide that the optimum profile for the new 10 had to be the same as other corners on the lap. There is lots of room to create a corner that hugs the inside wall and feeds into the chicane before the Andersson bridge, it would be much faster and offer something different. This 'solution' filters the cars into a narrow approach and imposes a wider and shorter apex - seriously why, the original may have been artificial but at least it was unique. This is neither a high speed corner we all want or a new overtaking zone it is just generic nothing corner...
Qualifying
Because time is a little limited today, a small matter of being on stage in a couple of hours or so, so as a result we'll revert to the more concise format as seen earlier in the season.
Q1
Max Chilton - Surprise, surprise the Briton spends another race starting from the back of the grid was barely noticeable during qualifying.
Jules Bianchi - Marussia have no pace at the moment in relation to their current rivals Caterham lining up behind the green cars again.
Giedo Van Der Garde - Van Der Garde bounced off the wall on his fastest lap but the car was able to complete the lap and at the time lead the lower division
Charles Pic - Pipped Giedo at the end of the session just by not hitting the wall I'd imagine
Pastor Maldonado - Another Williams knocked out of the first part of qualifying and more importantly Pastor has not found all that fort material in the new turn 10. Plenty of time for that.
Paul Di Resta - Out in Q1 again, since the tyre changes Force India have been nowhere and that trend has been repeated on the streets of Singapore.
Q2
Valtteri Bottas - Bottas may have escaped the relegation zone but didn't get much further in the next session only making it into 16th place
Adrian Sutil - The same could be said for Sutil, nowhere near the form the team had at the start of the season, the car that lead in Australia, while Di Resta almost took a podium in Bahrain - it's not going too well back here.
Sergio Perez - McLaren are still not doing well and have managed to be dragged into the driver rumour mill suggesting that Perez's seat might be up for grabs, 14th place today isn't a strong statement in dispelling these rumours
Kimi Raikkonen - Struggling with back pain issues this week, the more cynical among you may imply that those problems may be lack of money related and Kimi has effectively just given up, but either way the Finn could only manage 13th today. Personally I think he is looking for a visit to a local massage parlour...
Jean-Eric Vergne - In the dying seconds of Q2 Vergne was sitting in 8th, but the times tumbled on the last few laps and Jean-Eric was shuffled down the line and out of the top 10.
Nico Hulkenberg - Fractionally missing out on the top ten again, the last completed lap of the session demoted Nico by mere hundredths of a second.
Q3
Esteban Gutierrez - Lining up 10th does not tell the story of Gutierrez's day, remained completely anonymous up until the very end of Q2 when he somehow put the Sauber into 6th place... like Hulkenberg in Monza where on earth did that come from. But failed to set a time in Q3 and will get a penalty point for his trouble.
Daniel Ricciardo - Another top ten position for Webber's replacement although he was effectively last of those who set a lap in the final part of qualifying. But Toro Rosso are now competing with Sauber for top honours in the mid-field since Force India have fallen to the back of the grid.
Jenson Button - It is probably a sad state of affairs when qualifying 8th is a good day for McLaren and for Jenson, but kudos for going out and setting a lap even when it seemed like it would have been better to abort the session
Fernando Alonso - Ferrari are struggling a little and if you notice no mention of Massa yet, meaning Fernando is behind the driver the team have just fired... Interesting - but this drop off in form comes at just at the wrong time, just as Vettel is on a streak of complete dominance... goodbye championship.
Felipe Massa - Demonstrated the lack of grip in that car by powersliding out of the tunnel section coming very close to hitting the wall. Given Felipe's record of crashing on street tracks this has been a very successful day for Massa, perhaps Lotus will be giving him a call soon.
Lewis Hamilton - Sits last of the top four cars which interestingly accounts for 5th place on the grid, Hamliton seems happier than he was in Monza, but that didn't take too much considering how displeased he was then.
Mark Webber - Set out on the final lap hoping to steal the pole position from Vettel while the German was in hiding, set a strong first sector but lost three tenths at the end of the lap
Romain Grosjean - Proof that Lotus have some decent pace this weekend, if it wasn't for Raikkonen's back there might have been two cars up front, but Romain is doing a grand job of carrying the team in Singapore. Looking to secure his seat at the team for 2014
Nico Rosberg - Came oh so close to punishing Vettel for his seemingly excessive confidence in the final session, as Vettel hid Nico stormed to within a tenth of taking that pole away, despite being nowhere in practice.
Sebastien Vettel - The German bloke has been painfully dominant all session, so much that he gave up doing a final run in Q3 because at the time the margin was so large to second place. It came so close to all blowing up in his face but that Red Bull cannot be stopped at the moment and this is the closest he'll be to another car all weekend.
Looking to Tomorrow
Singapore always has the potential to be entertaining, with the threat of safety cars and running close to the maximum time limit of 2 hours. Because the chicane has been removed the laptimes are faster, meaning we should have a bigger margin to that limit - before safety cars get involved. In the GP2 race they managed to complete the session without brining out the safety car and without causing too much damage to each other. In the main race tomorrow things might be a little more sedate than previous years, calmer even Maldonado has stayed away from the barriers. For the most part the grid is in the order of pace, without anyone really out of position. There is the tiniest threat of rain but that hasn't happened for a long time now despite more significant forecasts. But with walls in close proximity anything is possible.
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