Scuderia Toro Rosso driver Brendon Hartley will start 17th on the grid for tonight’s Singapore Grand Prix.
“We had a tricky session this morning, but we made some changes and got the car in a better window for Qualifying,” commented Hartley. “It was pretty close to Q2; I had some traffic in my first run, my second run was clean but I made a couple of small mistakes in the middle sector which cost me time.
“Pierre (Gasly) got me by a tenth and a half of a second, and that was the difference between getting knocked out in Q1 and progressing to Q2. It’s a tricky track, you only get one chance around here. We were very good on tyres yesterday which was positive, so I remain hopeful we can make the strategy work and challenge for points in the race. We were hoping for better pace this weekend, but let’s see what tomorrow brings.”
Team mate Pierre Gasly will start 15th.
“It has been tricky for us since the beginning of the weekend because we were not as competitive as we had of hoped yesterday,” said Gasly. “Today was a bit better but there wasn’t much we could do to compete with the other teams for Q3.
“We struggled with balance and grip so we tried a few things to find a solution, but we weren’t able to put it together which has made it difficult to extract the most performance out of the car. We’re aiming to make up some positions tomorrow, we know in Singapore that can be difficult, but we are usually competitive on the Hypersofts in extending the life of the tyres, so that will be the target during the race.”
“Following a difficult Friday during which our short run pace was not looking great, we underwent a lot of analysis on car setup and tyres,” said Guillaume Dezoteux (Head of Vehicle Performance). “We had a plan for FP3 and it worked pretty well for Pierre, who was able to put a good lap together. However, he suffered from excessive oversteer in the last sector during the second timed lap, while it is not ideal we can expect it from this kind of track layout.
“Brendon had a more difficult time in final practice as he wasn’t happy with the handling of his car. We were definitely expecting something more from the Qualifying session here in Singapore, especially following the steps forward we made in FP3. Q1 was focussed on managing the traffic and chasing track evolution.
“Pierre did a good lap on his second run but Brendon made a mistake and didn’t make it through. During both runs of Q2, Pierre struggled with car balance and lacked rear stability which meant he wasn’t in a position to fight for Q3. Now we will analyse all of the data to get a better understanding of what happened and learn from a difficult session on a challenging track.
“The strategy for the race tomorrow is very open – between a one and two stop – and we had pretty decent pace during our long runs on Friday. Anything can happen here and our fans can count on us to try our best and fight hard in the midfield tomorrow!”
Qualifying results
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m36.015s –
2 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Renault 1m36.334s 0.319s
3 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m36.628s 0.613s
4 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1m36.702s 0.687s
5 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m36.794s 0.779s
6 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull/Renault 1m36.996s 0.981s
7 Sergio Perez Force India/Mercedes 1m37.985s 1.970s
8 Romain Grosjean Haas/Ferrari 1m38.320s 2.305s
9 Esteban Ocon Force India/Mercedes 1m38.365s 2.350s
10 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1m38.588s 2.573s
11 Fernando Alonso McLaren/Renault 1m38.641s –
12 Carlos Sainz Renault 1m38.716s –
13 Charles Leclerc Sauber/Ferrari 1m38.747s –
14 Marcus Ericsson Sauber/Ferrari 1m39.453s –
15 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso/Honda 1m39.691s –
16 Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 1m39.644s –
17 Brendon Hartley Toro Rosso/Honda 1m39.809s –
18 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren/Renault 1m39.864s –
19 Sergey Sirotkin Williams/Mercedes 1m41.263s –
20 Lance Stroll Williams/Mercedes 1m41.334s
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