Singapore 09 Qualifying – Hamilton on pole as Barrichello crash

Lewis Hamilton will start the Singapore Grand Prix on pole after a poor session for Brawn GP saw Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button finish in 10th and 12th.

Barrichello, trailing Button by 14 points in the title race, was fifth fastest but crashed late on and drops five places after changing his gearbox.

Button failed to make the top 10 as the championship leader produced an error-strewn display to finish 12th fastest.

Sebastian Vettel had just set the fastest time in sector one for Red Bull, while Williams’ Nico Rosberg had done likewise in sector two.

Hamilton was also preparing to go quicker still as were Red Bull’s Mark Webber, Renault’s Fernando Alonso, Toyota’s Timo Glock, BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica and McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen.

But since Barrichello crashed 26 seconds before the chequered flag was due to fall, they were all out of luck. The grid would be formed on the basis of their first run times.

However, what was set to be a tantalising climax to the session never played out after 37-year-old Barrichello slammed into the wall at turn five after losing control of his BGP 001 under braking after appearing to hit a big bump.

“It’s a disastrous session for us,” admitted team boss Ross Brawn. “We underestimated the competition in second qualifying because we used one old set, then one new set, and didn’t get the car balanced well on the new set.

“We were perilously close to losing both cars in that session. The shoot-out wasn’t bad, looking at the fuel weights, but that topped it off for us.

“With Jenson dropping out of third qualifying, Rubens had the maximum chance to get some points on Jenson. We’ll have to see what we can recover on Sunday.”

Kimi Raikkonen was another with a glum face after 1m 47.177s left his Ferrari only 13th, ahead of Sebastien Buemi’s Toro Rosso on 1m 47.369s and Jarno Trulli’s Toyota on 1m 47.413s.

Renault rookie Romain Grosjean will line up alongside Liuzzi on the back row in 19th after struggling with the brakes on his R29 from the off in qualifying after a new set were installed before the session.

The Frenchman enquired over the radio whether his brakes were working at all after running down the escape road at turn seven on his out-lap and despite completing 10 laps over the next 20 minutes couldn’t get near the cut line. f1 bbc