Excellent Massa comes out on top in qualifying 

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa produced a stunning final lap to pip Lewis Hamilton to pole position for tomorrow’s Singapore Grand Prix. The Brazilian twice went better than Hamilton to start at the front of the grid for the night-race.

Hamilton almost had a disastrous qualification for the second successive race as he nearly missed the cut for Q3. He posted a time that was only good enough to sneak through to the pole shootout during Q2. In the final round of qualification he seemed to have done enough to win pole, but Massa produced a brilliant lap to go six-tenths quicker than the Briton.

Renault driver let down by car at Singapore

Fernando Alonso, the fastest driver on the Singapore street circuit in practice on Friday and this morning, could only qualify in 15th place for tomorrow’s grand prix after car trouble. The Spaniard’s Renault suffered from a fuel feed problem which forced him out of the qualification competition after Q2. Alonso claimed he would have secured a front-row position without the problem.

“This weekend for whatever reason we were quick - we were P1 in both sessions yesterday and today - and we were fighting for big things this weekend,” Alonso told ITV Sport.

In other quotes, he was not so calm. “The pole position was unreachable, but I’m sure we would have been second or third,” he said. “The race is lost. You can’t overtake here and I’m starting from 15th, so I will be going out just to lap the track, but it’s over already.”