Hulkenberg was "desperate" to beat McLarens

Hulkenberg had been fractionally ahead of McLaren's Stoffel Vandoorne in fifth in Friday practice at Marina Bay, but was only seventh in final practice as Fernando Alonso and Vandoorne took fourth and fifth.

In qualifying, Hulkenberg outpaced Alonso to take the 'best of the rest' slot in seventh by 0.166 seconds, and got within two tenths of Valtteri Bottas's sixth-placed Mercedes.

Hulkenberg immediately radioed Renault to ask if he had beaten the McLarens and celebrated when told he had.

"It was an interesting fight and we set, and I personally had, that target [of beating McLaren]," said Hulkenberg.

"I definitely was desperate to, very determined to be ahead of them and be P7.

"It was quite satisfying with the last lap to get them."

Asked if he expected to maintain that position in the race, Hulkenberg replied: "I think we have the pace, our package is good and strong - if all goes well, yes."

Palmer laments third-sector "rallycrossing"

Jolyon Palmer, Renault Sport F1 Team RS17

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / LAT Images

Teammate Jolyon Palmer, who is yet to outqualify Hulkenberg in 2017, placed ahead of the German in Q1, but could not follow him into the final qualifying segment.

The Briton, who will line up 11th, lamented a scrappy third sector in his decisive push lap, which he says was well on course to take him to Q3.

“Especially the last lap, was looking to be quite a reasonable one to go through and then completely lost the rear in the last couple of corners, I lost a huge amount of time there,” Palmer said.

“Around this lap as well, 23 corners, these temperatures, the ultrasoft tyre, it's just very tough - there's a lot of traction zones and a lot of demand on the rear tyre.

“The last sector is just traction, traction, traction. Got around there and was looking like a mid-[1m]41[s] and suddenly just nothing and you're just rallycrossing through the last few corners.”

Taking cues from Hulkenberg “exceptionally good long run” during practice, Palmer has little doubt he will have the pace to finally score his first points of the season on Sunday.

“Hopefully we'll have the pace to be inside the top 10, I'm confident we will,” he said. “It just depends on us basically getting inside the top 10.

“I think everything is set up to potentially have a good race.”

Additional reporting by Edd Straw