Alonso pips Vettel to Singapore GP pole

The Spaniard saw off a late challenge from Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel to secure the top spot.

The German began his final flying lap in a provisional seventh place after making a mistake earlier in the session, and despite being comfortably up on Alonso's time through the first sector, he faded over the remainder of the lap and was left in second, 0.067s down on Alonso's bets time of 1m45.390s.

While Ferrari celebrated Alonso's success, it was a very different story for team-mate Felipe Massa, who will start from the back of the grid following a suspected engine problem during Q1.

McLaren locked out the second row, with Lewis Hamilton taking third ahead of Jenson Button, leaving championship leader Mark Webber a disappointed fifth alongside the Williams of Rubens Barrichello. The Brazilian's team-mate Nico Hulkenberg fell just shy of making it through to Q1 and finished 12th fastest behind Sebastien Buemi, although he will start from 17th due to a five-place grid penalty.

Mercedes got both its cars into the top 10, with Nico Rosberg seventh and Michael Schumacher ninth, the pair bookending Renault's Robert Kubica, and Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi rounded out the top 10.

Massa was not the only driver whose session was compromised by problems. Vitaly Petrov's hopes of cracking Q1 were ended when he spun and broke his right-rear suspension against the barriers during Q2, although he was still in with a shot of remaining in the top 10 before his time was finally overhauled by Buemi and Hulkenberg in the last couple of minutes.

Virgin won bragging rights in the battle of the new teams when Timo Glock took 18th, with a late push from Lotus' Heikki Kovalainen allowing the Finn to get ahead of Lucas di Grassi.

Jarno Trulli was 18th ahead of F1 returnee Christian Klien, who left his HRT team-mate Bruno Senna to join Massa on the back row.

Pos  Driver         Team                   Q1        Q2         Q3
 1.  Alonso         Ferrari                1:46.541  1:45.809   1:45.390
 2.  Vettel         Red Bull-Renault       1:46.960  1:45.561   1:45.457
 3.  Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes       1:48.296  1:46.042   1:45.571
 4.  Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1:48.032  1:46.490   1:45.944
 5.  Webber         Red Bull-Renault       1:47.088  1:45.908   1:45.977
 6.  Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth      1:48.183  1:47.019   1:46.236
 7.  Rosberg        Mercedes               1:48.554  1:46.783   1:46.443
 8.  Kubica         Renault                1:47.657  1:46.949   1:46.593
 9.  Schumacher     Mercedes               1:48.425  1:47.160   1:46.702
10.  Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari         1:48.908  1:47.599   1:47.884
11.  Alguersuari    Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1:48.127  1:47.666
12.  Hulkenberg     Williams-Cosworth      1:47.984  1:47.674
13.  Petrov         Renault                1:48.906  1:48.165
14.  Buemi          Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1:49.063  1:48.502
15.  Heidfeld       Sauber-Ferrari         1:48.696  1:48.557
16.  Sutil          Force India-Mercedes   1:48.496  1:48.899
17.  Liuzzi         Force India-Mercedes   1:48.988  1:48.961
18.  Glock          Virgin-Cosworth        1:50.721
19.  Kovalainen     Lotus-Cosworth         1:50.915
20.  di Grassi      Virgin-Cosworth        1:51.107
21.  Trulli         Lotus-Cosworth         1:51.641
22.  Klien          HRT-Cosworth           1:52.946
23.  Senna          HRT-Cosworth           1:54.174
24.  Massa          Ferrari

All Timing Unofficial