Analysis: How Hamilton won pole by the slenderest of margins

Getting a perfect lap at Singapore is always difficult; the 3.17 mile lap with 23 corners offers many traps and places to lose time. None of the top three put together a perfect lap with three best sector times.

With such small margins between the front four cars this year it is interesting to look at the sector times in detail and see whether the story could have been different. At most circuits in qualifying drivers tend to get their best sector times on the one lap, but here that was not the case.

One point to make at the outset is that, as we have seen before this year, the Mercedes margin is smaller when the supersoft is being used. Perhaps this is because the car already has superior rear grip to the others, so when the extra grip comes from the supersoft, it makes the front of the car understeer or push in the corners.

Lewis Hamilton

The Mercedes driver took his sixth pole of the season, despite locking up a wheel into the first corner on his pole lap. He dropped 0.12 secs by doing that but then proceeded to make it up on the rest of the lap. He did the damage in the middle sector, but was still slower through there than Ricciardo.

Hamilton set his best middle and final sector times on the pole lap.

Sector 1: 28.327 (Personal best - 28.207s)

Sector 2: 40.360

Sector 3: 36.994

Qualifying lap: 1m45.681s

Lap time with three best sectors: 1m 45.561s

Nico Rosberg

In contrast, although he was close, Nico Rosberg was only able to get one personal best sector time into his final run, when he ran new supersoft tyres. He was 0.028s off his best in Sector 1 and 0.022s off in Sector 2. His final sector was actually faster than Hamilton's, by 0.114s, but he gave away 0.178s in the middle sector. He lost the pole because he wasn't quite fast enough there.

Interestingly, his personal best Sectors 1 and 2 came on his final run in Q2, when the track was slower than at the end of Q3.

This suggests that Rosberg left some time on the table when the pressure was on in the pole position shootout.

Sector 1: 28.320 (Personal best - 28.292s)

Sector 2: 40.488 (Personal best 40.466s)

Sector 3: 36.880

Qualifying lap: 1m45.688s

Lap with three best sectors: 1m 45.638s

Daniel Ricciardo

Ricciardo set the fastest middle sector of any driver, but lost out in Sector 1 compared to the Mercedes, as did his team mate Sebastian Vettel. This was enough to lose them the pole, because in the rest of the lap Ricciardo was faster than Hamilton.

Like Hamilton, Ricciardo's qualifying lap featured two of his fastest sectors, but he was a tenth down on his best in the final sector.

If he had strung his best sectors together he would have been only a tenth of a second behind Hamilton, but still third.

Qualifying lap: 1m 45.854s

Lap time with three best sectors: 1m 45.737s

Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso

The really interesting one is Alonso. He could have been third on the grid if he and put together his three best sectors on the same lap.

Everyone was balancing out the need to use supersoft tyres from Q1 onwards with the need to have a set for the final runs. But Alonso peaked on his first run in Q3, in the first two sectors at least. He lost 4/10ths in the final sector on that run and then did only one personal best on the decisive run at the end, in the final sector.

In contrast Sebastian Vettel was the only one of the top five to put his three best sectors together in one lap. He just wasn't as fast as Ricciardo.