Vettel flies to 11th pole of 2011 in Singapore

Having topped both Q1 and Q2 by half a second, Vettel carried the same margin through to the first runs of Q3, as he started the pole shoot-out with a 1m44.381s - while the McLarens and Ferraris were almost tripping over each other looking for clear space.

Vettel did not improve on his final run, but his team-mate Mark Webber could only get within 0.4s, so the German's pole was safe.

Jenson Button took third for McLaren, 0.005s ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who had picked up a puncture later in Q2 and only did one early run in Q3.

The best Ferrari could manage was fifth and sixth, ahead of Nico Rosberg's Mercedes, with Fernando Alonso a second quicker than Felipe Massa.

Force India got both cars into Q3 but chose not to run in the final segment, so fill row five. Michael Schumacher did not set a time either and starts eighth for Mercedes.

Renault's prediction of a very tough weekend came true as its drivers ended up fighting to escape from Q1. Bruno Senna was in the drop-zone before a mighty last lap got him up to 15th (where he would stay in Q2), but knocked his team-mate Vitaly Petrov down to an eliminated 18th, the Russian's time nearly a second slower than Senna's.

The Force Indias' last Q2 laps denied Sergio Perez a Q3 place and left him 11th. His Sauber team-mate Kamui Kobayashi caused a Q2 red flag when the aggressive approach he had taken to the Turn 10 chicane all weekend became rather too wild and he launched his car into the wall.

The Williams will start 12th and 13th, while the Toro Rossos qualified either side of Senna in 14th and 16th.

Heikki Kovalainen's initial Q3 run saw his Lotus ahead of Petrov and within a tenth of Buemi,though the Finn was cut adrift when he failed to improve on his last lap.

It was a similar story for HRT, which had both cars ahead of the Virgins going into the final Q1 runs, but ended up on the back row again as Timo Glock and Jerome D'Ambrosio improved. Tonio Liuzzi's five-place grid penalty for causing the Monza start mayhem will have no effect whatsoever as the Italian qualified slowest of all, 0.4s behind his Singapore debutant team-mate Daniel Ricciardo.

Pos  Driver                Team                 Time            Gap   
 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m44.381s
 2.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1m44.732s   + 0.351
 3.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m44.804s   + 0.423
 4.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m44.809s   + 0.428
 5.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m44.874s   + 0.493
 6.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m45.800s   + 1.419
 7.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m46.013s   + 1.632
 8.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             no time
 9.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes no time
10.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes no time
Q2 cut-off time: 1m47.486s                                  Gap **
11.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m47.616s   + 2.685
12.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth    1m48.082s   + 3.151
13.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth    1m48.270s   + 3.339
14.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m48.634s   + 3.703
15.  Bruno Senna           Renault              1m48.662s   + 3.731
16.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m49.862s   + 4.931
17.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       No time
Q1 cut-off time: 1m49.588s                                    Gap *
18.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault              1m49.835s   + 3.438
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault        1m50.948s   + 4.551
20.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault        1m51.012s   + 4.615
21.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth      1m52.154s   + 5.757
22.  Jerome D'Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth      1m52.363s   + 5.966
23.  Daniel Ricciardo      HRT-Cosworth         1m52.404s   + 6.007
24.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth         1m52.810s   + 6.413

107% time: 1m53.844s