Sebastian Vettel takes pole position for the Singapore Grand Prix

The four-time world champion was the only man to lap the Marina Bay street circuit in less than 1m44s in qualifying, and he ends an unbroken run of 23 consecutive races on pole for Mercedes.

The world champion team has struggled to be competitive so far in Singapore, and the best Lewis Hamilton could manage was the fifth fastest time, a massive 1.415s adrift of Vettel.

Vettel set the pace throughout Q2 and Q3, and found 0.4s between his first and second runs in the top-10 shootout to secure Ferrari's first pole position since the 2012 German GP.

Daniel Ricciardo was second fastest for Red Bull, 0.543s further back, while Vettel's Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was third, just ahead of the second Red Bull of Daniil Kvyat.

Nico Rosberg rounded out the top six, 0.115s slower than Mercedes team-mate Hamilton.

The Toro Rosso of Max Verstappen made just a single run in Q3, but he managed to split the Williams pair of Valtteri Bottas in seventh and Felipe Massa in ninth.

The Dutchman was only 0.122s slower than Bottas, but 0.279s quicker than Massa.

Romain Grosjean's Lotus rounded out the top 10, nearly four tenths adrift of Massa's Williams.

Others with hope of making the top-10 shootout were scuppered by Carlos Sainz Jr striking the wall heavily at Turn 19 in his Toro Rosso, which brought out yellow flags and spoiled the closing stages of Q2.

However, Force India reckoned Q3 was just beyond its drivers regardless.

Nico Hulkenberg improved fractionally on his first run, but his 1m46.305s lap was only good enough for 11th, while team-mate Sergio Perez was bumped to 13th by the McLaren of Fernando Alonso.

Sainz wound up a lowly 14th on account of his error, 0.125s faster than the second McLaren of Jenson Button, who felt he had too much understeer.

A last-gasp improvement from Button earlier in Q1 meant both Sauber drivers failed to progress past the first stage of qualifying.

Felipe Nasr looked set to make it through in the heavily revised C34, but he ended up 0.054s shy of the cut-off.

The Brazilian was 16th fastest, 0.083s faster than Sauber team-mate Marcus Ericsson.

The Lotus of Pastor Maldonado was 0.225s adrift in 17th, but well ahead of the two Manor Marussias.

Alexander Rossi, making his F1 debut this weekend, led team-mate Will Stevens after the first runs in Q1, but the American ended up half a second adrift, thanks to a substantial improvement from Stevens at the end.

SINGAPORE GP GRID