Held at night in the waterfront Marina Bay area, the Singapore Grand Prix is a challenging 23-corner street course that has become a favourite with Formula 1 drivers and fans alike. For the press it's a tough event to cover, with the media room still packed at 4am. The melting humidity also makes it painful to lug your gear around the 5km track, but all of those gripes are quickly forgotten when the F1 cars hit the track. Here's some insights from the F1 paddock into what unfolded in qualifying.

The teams used the final practice session for final setup tweaks, and through the fast, flat-out Turn 6, many cars – Alonso’s Ferrari and the Toro Rossos in particular – were bottoming out over the street course’s bumps.

The kerbs have been a big issue for both the drivers and organisers. The Marina Bay street circuit uses temporary kerbs that have been taking quite a battering by the cars, and in some corners have come loose. Six corners in particular required the kerbing to be secured with new bolts and epoxy resin. As with previous years, the Turn 10 chicane's steep kerbs has proven challenging for the drivers. A dozen drivers went off at the chicane in practice, and qualifying would see that trend continue. Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber launched over the kerbs in spectacular fashion with all four wheels in the air before crashing against the barriers. Kobayashi – who has managed to get through to Q2 on multiple occasions this year – will find himself starting in 17th.

Force India continued its strong showing in this year’s championship and this time around they had both cars in the Top 10 for the very first time. Di Resta was pipped to ninth by team-mate Adrian Sutil, who clocked the fastest trap speed of all the drivers at 293.1km/h.

There was some controversy in Q3 as only seven cars completed a lap, with Michael Schumacher, Adrian Sutil and Paul Di Resta all opting out of posting a time in favour of saving tyres for race day. Strategically, this means they have an extra set of supersofts for the race.

Lewis Hamilton cast a gloomy figure after qualifying. The McLaren team was unable to refuel Hamilton’s car for another run, and while the team tried to fix the problem, Hamilton was unable to return to the track.

Although Hamilton was second at the time, both team-mate Jenson Button and Mark Webber were able to improve their times, pushing Hamilton down to fourth on the grid.

Hamilton also commented about being blocked on his out-lap by Ferrari's Felipe Massa before encountering Fernando Alonso on a hot lap. After qualifying, Alonso stated he had done his best Q3 lap he's done this year. "I gave it 120%, taking risks in some some corners" he said. "But that was the only way I could hope to fight for the top places. If I'd driven a normal lap, I would have finished in the same position, but half a second off the two McLarens rather than a tenth." Lining up in fifth, Alonso trumped team-mate Massa by almost a full second.

Mark Webber was quickest in the final practice session but was unable to match Sebastian Vettel in qualifying. Webber set the fastest time in Sector 1, but lost almost half a second to Vettel in Sectors 2 and 3.

Vettel can clinch the championship this weekend and is in pole position (sorry, bad pun intended) to do that today. Running the Pirelli supersofts, Vettel claimed his 26th pole, some three tenths faster than Webber.

What may be frightening to the other drivers was Vettel’s admission that he could have gone faster. “On the last run, I maybe tried a bit too much going into the really tricky chicane around Turn 10” he said after qualifying. “I think I could have made it, but I decided to abort the lap, as it can be so easy to damage the car.”

The first ten spots on the grid will be colour coordinated, with Red Bull locking out the front row ahead of McLaren, Ferrari,  Mercedes and Force India. 

Pirelli has brought the soft and supersoft compounds to Singapore, and yesterday estimated there would be an 0.8-1.0sec per lap difference between the two tyres. In the media room, most are predicting a three stop strategy by most teams…

…That’s so long as the rain stays away. Although the sun is currently out over the track, there's some worrying clouds on the horizon with the forecast predicting a 40% chance of rain. It has yet to rain at a Singapore GP, and there’s some concern that the combination of rain and the artificial lighting will cause ‘dazzling’ for the drivers.

- Charles Kha

Photos by Charles Kha and Mercedes GP