F1 Singapore Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg tune in as radio coaching banned

Mercedes take front row as new rule limits communications between the teams and their drivers

Lewis Hamilton will start the Singapore Grand Prix from pole, with Nico Rosberg second and Daniel Ricciardo third (Getty Images)

Radio communications between drivers and engineers might have been restricted this weekend but there was still enough left to reveal the depth of Nico Rosberg’s disappointment at losing out to Lewis Hamilton.

When his race engineer told him he had just finished seven thousandths of a second behind his Mercedes team-mate in the battle for Singapore Grand Prix pole, Rosberg said simply: “Dammit!”

As Rosberg finished his final qualifying lap, rueing a pre-session change of brakes which he admitted had put him off his stride as he had to adjust to their different characteristics, Hamilton was still working hard on problems of his own.

He had slid wide in the first corner on his second and final lap, the one that was supposed to be the quicker, and had a lot of ground to make up.

Hamilton admitted: “I didn’t really have a clean lap in the whole of qualifying. You do your first lap and then you establish a delta to compare your subsequent time with, and because of sliding wide I was 0.18sec down by turn 5. I was thinking it would be almost impossible to regain that, but on the previous lap there were a couple of corners I’d messed up so I fixed those and the rest of the lap just got better and better.”

Rosberg had calmed down a little when he came to analyse the session, saying: “When you hear that the gap is only seven-thousandths you think back over the lap and that’s nothing. Just a little bit here and there… But fair play, Lewis did a great job.”

Lewis Hamilton will start the Singapore Grand Prix from pole (Getty Images)

Wrapping up the front row was a relief to Mercedes, who admitted that the speed of Red Bull and Ferrari had surprised them on the track with the most corners which places high demands on engine power and downforce, both attributes Mercedes have had in spades all season.

“The others have taken a big step, and it was a real surprise to see Ferrari so competitive, and also Williams and Red Bull,” Hamilton added. “It was the most exciting qualifying session for a long time, with a lot of people in the mix.”

In third place Daniel Ricciardo believes he has a chance of challenging the Mercedes, backed by team-mate Sebastian Vettel in fourth a fraction ahead of Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso. But with the first nine cars covered by half a second, and a high likelihood of a safety car intervention, this is one of those races in which anything can happen.

Kimi Raikkonen finally found some pace to put in a good showing (Getty Images)

“It’s definitely encouraging,” the Australian said. “We came here thinking it would be good if we were within two or three tenths of the Mercedes, but now we are more optimistic about our chances after we ended up bit closer than we expected.”

Much has been made of the ban on radio communications to enhance driver performance, but Hamilton and Rosberg don’t seem too bothered by it.

“We’re all in the same boat, so I’m quite excited about it,” the former said. “I don’t think it’ll make too much difference,” Rosberg thought. “The team can’t tell me any more that I’m losing time in turn 7 or that in turn 20 I should just keep doing what I’m doing, but it’s not too much of a thing.”

With a big difference in performance between the soft and supersoft compound Pirellis, tyre wear is likely to be a far more significant factor. “I think coming into the weekend that we had a certain opinion how the tyres would behave and obviously after our long runs yesterday we saw quite a big difference from that,” Hamilton said.

Final Positions after Qualifying:

1 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) Mercedes GP 1min 45.681secs

2 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes GP 1:45.688

3 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) Red Bull 1:45.854

4 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 1:45.902

5 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 1:45.907

6 Felipe Massa (Bra) Williams 1:46.000

7 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin)Ferrari 1:46.170

8 Valtteri Bottas (Fin)Williams 1:46.187

9 Kevin Magnussen (Den) McLaren 1:46.250

10 Daniil Kvyat (Rus) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:47.362

11 Jenson Button (Gbr) McLaren 1:46.943

12 Jean-Eric Vergne (Fra) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:46.989

13 Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Force India 1:47.308

14 Esteban Gutierrez (Mex) Sauber-Ferrari 1:47.333

15 Sergio Perez (Mex) Force India 1:47.575

16 Romain Grosjean (Fra) Lotus F1 Team 1:47.812

17 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Sauber-Ferrari 1:48.324

18 Pastor Maldonado (Ven) Lotus F1 Team 1:49.063

19 Jules Bianchi (Fra) Marussia 1:49.440

20 Kamui Kobayashi (Jpn) Caterham 1:50.405

21 Max Chilton (Gbr) Marussia 1:50.473

22 Marcus Ericsson (Swe) Caterham 1:52.287