Rosberg beats Ricciardo to Singapore pole

Nico Rosberg proved untouchable in qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix as he stormed to pole position from Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo.

The Mercedes driver posted a 1:42.58s effort on ultra-soft tyres, which proved more than half a second faster than his nearest rival Ricciardo.

“I’m definitely happy with that one (pole position) for my 200th F1 race,” said Rosberg.

“It was probably one of my top three laps ever.

“It wasn’t clear how we were going to stack up against Red Bull as they were very quick on the super-soft, so I really had to give it everything.”

Ricciardo had occupied fourth after his first run before producing a stunning final lap to achieve his front row target.

“I’m pleased enough as the aim was to try and get on the front row,” said Ricciardo.

“We knew it would be hard to get in front of the Mercedes drivers but it was nice to at least get ahead of one of them.

“We made improvements in qualifying and it finally came good. We qualified on the super-soft in Q2 and we will start the race on that tyre.”

Rosberg comfortably beat his title rival and team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who struggled to hook up a clean lap in Q3.

Two untidy laps ultimately cost the reigning world champion as he ended qualifying in third 0.7s adrift of Rosberg.

The Brit will share the second row alongside the sister Red Bull of Max Verstappen.

Ferrari’s pole position hopes were left in the hands of Kimi Raikkonen, but the Finn’s personal best was only good enough for fifth.

Meanwhile, team-mate Sebastian Vettel will start from the rear of the grid after a suspected front anti-roll bar failure saw him eliminated from Q1.

Toro Rosso returned to form with Carlos Sainz sixth ahead of Daniil Kvyat, while Nico Hulkenberg (Force India), Fernando Alonso (McLaren) and Sergio Perez (Force India) completed the top 10.

After showing a glimpse of pace in the opening segment of qualifying, Williams’ Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa narrowly missed out on Q3.

The pair will occupy the sixth row ahead of McLaren’s Jenson Button, who saw his chance to make the top 10 dashed by a brush with the wall.

The Brit was forced to stop his car on the circuit after breaking his steering in the incident.

It proved to be a difficult day for Haas F1 with Esteban Gutierrez 14th, while Romain Grosjean suffered a nasty crash in Q2 when his car lost control and slammed into the barriers at Turn 11.

Grosjean appeared to escape injury in the accident that brought out the yellow flags in the final minutes of Q2.

The Renaults of Kevin Magnussen and Jolyon Palmer continued to struggle for outright pace as they failed to progress from Q1, alongside Felipe Nasr (Sauber) and the Manors of Pascal Wehrlein and Esteban Ocon.

Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix is scheduled to begin at 2200 AEST.

Result: Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix Qualifying