After a week in which it emerged that Ferrari will likely supply rival team Red Bull with its engines next season, it was perhaps appropriate that Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo would find themselves at the front of the grid for Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix.
A little surprising perhaps, as Formula One championship leader Lewis Hamilton was gunning to equal Ayrton Senna’s record of eight successive pole positions, but for once he and Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg were unable to bounce back after Friday’s poor practice performances.
Indeed, Saturday’s qualifying results left the duo back in fifth and sixth respectively on the testing Marina Bay street circuit where it is notoriously difficult to overtake. Five of the last seven winners in Singapore have started on pole, including Hamilton last year.
And ahead of them will be another Ferrari-Red Bull row on the grid, with veteran Finn Kimi Raikkonen third fastest and young Russian Daniil Kvyat fourth.
“I know it is only Saturday and the main job is coming tomorrow but I have to enjoy the moment when I heard we made it,” said four-time world champion Vettel, who claimed the 46th pole of his career.
“The car was fantastic to drive and it got better through qualifying. I am surprised by the margin but it came together and I had a near-perfect lap at the end.”
It was Ferrari’s first pole position since 2012, when Fernando Alonso was quickest in Germany.
Red Bull’s improved performance came after the team announced it was ending its partnership with Renault a year early and seeking a new engine supplier. The relationship helped Red Bull dominate F1 from 2010-13, but the French manufacturer has struggled to adapt since the introduction of new hybrid engines.
Reports claim Red Bull will turn to Ferrari for its engines in the short term after being rejected by Mercedes, which does not want to supply a rival, but the Austrian marque is said to be in talks with Volkswagen about a possible takeover by the German manufacturer.
Renault, meanwhile, has admitted it is considering returning to the grid with its own team by buying back the struggling outfit now known as Lotus, which it relinquished at the end of 2010.
Lotus is facing insolvency proceedings over unpaid tax in its UK base, but its leading driver Romain Grosjean was still able to qualify 10th on Saturday.
Valtteri Bottas was seventh fastest and Williams teammate Felipe Massa ninth, with Toro Rosso’s Dutch teenager Max Verstappen eighth.
It was the first time since June last year that Mercedes failed to win pole, leaving the German team one short of Williams’ record of 24 in a row set in 1992-93.
Two-time world champion Hamilton, who was over a second slower than Vettel’s leading time of one minute 43.885 seconds, is still hoping to win his eighth race out of 13 this season and match Senna’s career total of 41 victories.
“I was on a knife edge to get as much as I could,” said the British driver, who leads second-placed Rosberg by 53 points. “Our problem this weekend is tires, they are not giving us a lot of grip and we slide around a lot.
“We try to understand why our tires are bad. We have the quickest car but cannot utilize it with the tires.”
Two-time world champion Alonso failed to make Q3, qualifying 12th, while McLaren teammate Jenson Button was 15th.
The night race will take place despite the hazy conditions caused by farmers burning forests in neighboring Indonesia, and organizers said pollution masks will be on sale.