Sebastian Vettel secured Singapore pole with just a single run in Q3

Vettel and his RedBull had a strategy but it was risky as anything can happen in the final moments. The strategy was to make the pole lap in the first run of Q3 and save a new set of supersoft tyres for the race by sitting out the second run of Q3 and sure it paid off.

The world champion finished Q2 on top and came out for the Q3 with full swing and managed to pull out a time six tenths of a second ahead of Rosberg of Mercedes and retired into the pits while his oppopents including his team mate Mark Webber took onto the track for a second run during the final minutes of Q3 for their chance on pole.

Webber set a purple (fastest time) in Sector 1 and Rosberg and Romain set their quickests in Sector 2 but Vettel´s Sector 3 time was unmatched and it was all enough to secure pole for the triple world champion who looked nervoulsy on the timing screens in his garage during final minutes of the session.  
 
The champion was relieved his time was unbeaten and said “It was a strange feeling at the end of Q3," 

Vettel continued "It’s already strange when you stand in the garage with only two minutes left in the session, but much worse when you see the others making their final attempt and there’s nothing you can do!

“I was watching the sector times closely with Romain (Grosjean) , Nico and Mark in particular,”.

“Mark started with a purple time in sector one, then Nico went purple in sector two and then Romain, but fortunately my last sector was fast enough to just stay ahead. It’s a great feeling as it could have gone wrong, but I’m very happy with the result. The car has been phenomenal all weekend. Yesterday the gap to the front was a bit of a surprise, but today was a bit more what we expected with the Mercedes being so close.”

Singapore Grand Prix 2013 - Qualifying Results