How a bad qualifying lap put Vettel on pole for Singapore win

Drivers grasping for a cliche to fill the Saturday silence often remind the world that the race is on Sunday and not decided in qualifying.

Sebastian Vettel proved that this is not always true by apparently losing his shot at victory with a poor, and ultimately aborted, final lap in Q3 that perversely proved to be the foundation stone of his victory.

By inadvertently hiding in plain sight in third on the grid, and holding that position at the start, Vettel was perfectly placed to capitalise on the surprisingly potent advantage of the undercut on race night.

Inevitably, some with an overly sensitive nose for conspiracy smelled a rat, but the reality was that the Ferrari pitwall didn't realise that Vettel was going to gain such a big advantage - 3.9 seconds - by stopping a lap earlier than team-mate Charles Leclerc until the die had unwittingly been cast.

Ferrari headed to Singapore with no expectations of being in the hunt for victory, but did have a significant aerodynamic upgrade including a modified front wing/nose, floor, diffuser and rear wing.

After a difficult Friday, during which Leclerc suffered a gearbox failure that cost him most of first practice, Ferrari, as expected, didn't seem to be at the races either on single-lap or long-run pace.

Work understanding the package overnight meant it was a car transformed in Saturday practice, and Ferrari carried that form through to qualifying.

With possession of pole position nine-tenths of the law on the streets of Singapore, Ferrari biased its set-up efforts more towards qualifying than usual.

Toto Wolff later admitted his Mercedes team had taken too conventional an approach and set its cars up for race conditions with the usual understeer to protect the rears. That left Leclerc a clear run to take pole despite a lively rear end that required a couple of big opposite-lock moments to keep the car out of the wall.

Ferrari enacted the next stage of its plan and shut down the race entirely

Vettel's 12 months of misery seemed to continue as he converted provisional pole after the first Q3 runs into third on the grid thanks to a final lap that was messy even before he made his Turn 18 error.

Hamilton split the Ferraris and Vettel knew his best chance was to get ahead of the Mercedes at the start. Instead, he got his second slice of good fortune that would keep him in what proved to be the box seat for the race that followed.

After a good start, he menaced Hamilton during the first lap and forced the Mercedes driver to defend into Turns 7 and 8 before slotting into third.

Once things had settled down, Ferrari then enacted the next stage of its plan and shut down the race entirely. Leclerc was given a target time of 1m49.5s - a painful 13.3s off qualifying pace - that he proceeded to hit, give or take a few tenths, from laps 3-14.

This neutralised the race. Hamilton sat behind, often with DRS available but never close enough to threaten, and Vettel was behind him with a gap that floated around the 1.1-1.6s mark.

Then there was Max Verstappen, puzzled by the Red Bull's lack of pace in the corners at a circuit were expectations were high, around a second behind and chased by the other Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas. Alex Albon, in the other Red Bull, sat at the back of the top-team queue in sixth.

Off the back of this group was the bemused midfield leader Lando Norris in seventh, unable to make use of the pace of the soft rubber he was forced to start on thanks to being held up by the fastest cars in F1. Given everyone outside of the top-nine starters, who were all on softs, started on mediums - save for hard-shod Pierre Gasly - this meant his grasp on seventh place was less firm than it should have been.

Ferrari's all-out qualifying approach meant that its only chance was to keep a tight leash on the race. The spread of the field in qualifying had been almost five seconds, but during this phase of the race everyone was lapping at more or less the same pace.

Thanks to the rolling roadblock, the fastest of all from laps 3-14 was Williams driver George Russell, on hards after a first-lap stop for a front wing change after a first-corner clash with Daniel Ricciardo's Renault.

But as the field thinned out thanks to several midfielders deciding to make early stops and take advantage of clear track down the order, an inviting gap appeared between Lance Stroll's Racing Point and Nico Hulkenberg's Renault.

Hulkenberg had also stopped at the end of the first lap after suffering a puncture in a misjudged first-lap move on Carlos Sainz Jr that also put the McLaren driver out of points contention, and was lapping at a pace that might have given him the lead had he not got stuck behind Romain Grosjean's Haas. The question was, who would take the gap first?

Ferrari was never going to bring Leclerc in first. It's unusual for the leader to make the first move in such situations and the Ferrari pitwall had no idea how fast Hamilton might be able to go once in clear air - so it made no sense to expose him to a potential 'overcut'.

With Verstappen struggling with his rear Pirellis and heading to the pits at the end of lap 19 of 60, Ferrari made a late call to Vettel, then at Turn 20, to stop too.

This was a sensible strategy, ensuring he maintained track position over Verstappen and with a shot at undercutting Hamilton. Vettel was 3.6s behind leader Leclerc at the moment he pulled into the pits and emerged 31.7s behind after an adequate, but not super-quick, stop to take on hards. But his out-lap was rapid.

At this point, Ferrari and Vettel were only thinking about undercutting Hamilton, who they anticipated would pit on the next lap along with Leclerc.

But so powerful was the undercut, even by Singapore standards, that Ferrari was oblivious to the fact Vettel was also attacking Leclerc. During Vettel's out-lap, all the radio chatter was about needing to attack Hamilton, with Leclerc not even being mentioned.

Vettel was surely surprised and delighted in equal measure to see the sister car cruising out of the pitlane and destined to emerge just behind him after stopping next time around.

"When we stopped Sebastian, first Verstappen was ready to stop so we had to protect his position," said Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto.

"It was the best opportunity for us to try and overtake Hamilton. He drove very well on new tyres and that's racing, he was ahead of Charles. We could not have stopped Charles at that stage because, if you are leading, you will not stop first. It was simply the proper window for Seb.

"The undercut was more powerful than expected, it was 3.9s and we were not expecting such a big number.

"When we stopped Sebastian, we thought Charles stopping a lap later would have remained ahead."

Leclerc was baffled and angry. Although he was given the hurry up on his out-lap to ensure that Hamilton was covered, he wasn't aware Vettel was a threat - because Ferrari hadn't realised it.

The strategic decision by Ferrari was correct as it converted what would likely have been a one-four had Verstappen been allowed to undercut Vettel into a one-two - just with its drivers reversed.

But it was understandable that Leclerc felt he could have pushed more earlier in the stint to build a gap to Vettel, even though after the race he accepted the strategy decision once it had been explained to him.

Mercedes, in hindsight, should have pitted on the same lap as Vettel and Verstappen as it would have allowed Hamilton to undercut Leclerc and stay ahead of the other Ferrari.

But Mercedes didn't want to take the risk of making the first move given uncertainty over what pace the Ferraris might unleash should Hamilton stop and the risk of losing time to the midfielders he would drop behind.

Instead, Hamilton not only stayed out a lap longer but actually extended his stint given it was clear he'd lost out to Vettel when the Ferrari driver was halfway round his out-lap.

Despite the looming threat of Verstappen, who pitted at the same time as Vettel and was running 3.5s further back, Hamilton was left out but without the grip to have any chance of making an unlikely 'overcut' work.

But Mercedes did have some hope. Firstly, Hamilton was in a position that a timely safety car or virtual safety car would allow him to pit and retain the lead.

Secondly, the slow pace early in the race meant that Vettel, Leclerc and Verstappen - the latter moving into 'virtual' third place on lap 22 thanks to his pace on fresh rubber - had four midfielders ahead of them to clear.

With Albon (lap 20) and Bottas (lap 22) both having stopped and continued, Hamilton was well out of phase with the rest of the top six and searching for unlikely time gains over those on fresher rubber.

Vettel reached the first of the traffic and gained the DRS on fifth-placed Lance Stroll on the back straight on lap 26.

At this point, Vettel was only 20.7s behind Hamilton so it was extremely unlikely the traffic could cost him enough time to let the temporarily leading Mercedes gain the more than seven seconds required.

With Leclerc 1.3s further back and Verstappen just 1.1s behind the other Ferrari, Hamilton was on course to emerge well behind all three. Plus, Bottas was about to move into position to jump ahead of Hamilton as well, and might have done had Mercedes not given him a target lap time to prevent this happening and also hold back Albon.

As Vettel started to make his way through the traffic, Mercedes decided the best policy was to bring Hamilton in and hope any delay would bring a charging Hamilton close to those ahead given his tyres were a long way past their best. This also minimised any time loss for Bottas.

But it was during this phase of the race that Vettel excelled and comfortably outperformed Leclerc. As they made their way through Stroll, Ricciardo, Gasly and the Alfa Romeo of Antonio Giovinazzi, Vettel made significant gains. His incisive move on Gasly, in particular, was an exemplary piece of driving.

Vettel took the lead from Giovinazzi - who later said he hoped his family had been watching his cameo at the front - on lap 31. At this time, Leclerc was still down in fourth and trying to find a way past Gasly. It wasn't until lap 33 that Leclerc had cleared both the Toro Rosso and Giovinazzi, by which time he had fallen to 6.6s behind.

In that brief spell, Vettel pulled a massive 5.3s on his team-mate. While Leclerc had some good fortune, this was race driving of the highest calibre.

Leclerc used the safety car periods to gripe about how unhappy he was with the situation

Verstappen had followed Leclerc through, while Hamilton had slotted into fourth when he stopped thanks to the Mercedes pitwall ensuring Bottas didn't undercut his way ahead. Behind, Albon was back into sixth and the race returned to normal.

The big winner was Vettel, who had jumped from third to first. The big losers were Leclerc, who had lost the lead, and Hamilton who had dropped two places to fourth.

The leaders still had half of the race to go but, with no more pitstops expected and a big performance gap needed to make a pass, the expectation was things would remain unchanged, with Ferrari continuing to control the pace.

But there were curveballs - three of them in fact - in the form of a rapid-fire trio of safety-car periods.

The first of these struck when the leaders were on their 36th lap. This was triggered by Haas driver Romain Grosjean's attempt to pass Russell at Turn 8.

Russell defended the inside at the right-hander and Grosjean attempted to go around the outside. Contact followed and left Russell's Williams stranded. Grosjean had not quite been using all the road on the outside and perhaps would've been wiser to have backed out of it.

The safety car closed up the field, but Vettel made a sharp restart and crossed the line with eight tenths in hand over Leclerc. But it wasn't long before the safety car was again deployed, this time to allow the recovery of Sergio Perez's Racing Point, which had stopped thanks to an oil leak while running 10th.

Leclerc was a little closer this time, 0.5s behind across the line, but unable to threaten. The third and final safety car was caused by Kimi Raikkonen not spotting Daniil Kvyat sending his Toro Rosso up the inside into Turn 1 in an attempt to take 12th place. It was a bold and legitimate move, but Raikkonen turned in and retired with front-left suspension damage after the resulting contact.

Again, Vettel held the lead at the restart and Leclerc, who used the safety-car periods to gripe about how unhappy he was with the situation - albeit stressing that he wasn't going to do anything stupid - wasn't able to threaten.

The pitstop phase had shuffled the top-six pace and the race situation didn't change during the rest of a GP that lasted almost two hours.

Behind the top six, Norris did hang onto his seventh place, although the safety cars meant he was under pressure from Gasly in the closing stages, with the recovering Renault of Hulkenberg also not far behind and ahead of erstwhile race leader Giovinazzi.

As furious as Leclerc was, so Vettel was delighted. He'd ridden his luck, certainly, and had he qualified ahead of Hamilton, or passed the Mercedes at the start, he'd have never been in the position to jump Leclerc as he wouldn't have been allowed to undercut him.

For Ferrari, which did consider reversing the positions, it was a fortuitous piece of happenstance.

With no serious title considerations, a victory for Vettel to end his calamitous run since last winning in Belgium in August last year is a boost for the team overall. But that doesn't mean it was deliberate.

To its credit, Ferrari secured a most unexpected one-two with the way it played its strategy, and that should not be overlooked given it earned justified criticism for squandering so many opportunities in the first half of the season.

While Leclerc can take solace from the fact he should have won, and this result doesn't change anything in terms of his recently established supremacy within Ferrari, Vettel is right to be happy with a well-executed win.

Yes, he benefited from his own failure on Saturday, but he was still quick in Singapore and, as he showed during the phase that he and Leclerc were clearing traffic, there's still a thing or two he can show his young team-mate.