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31 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 16 SEPTEMBER 2018 SPORTS FORMULA 1 LEWIS Hamilton upset the odds to put his Mercedes on pole po- sition for the Singapore Grand Prix following a scintillating lap in qualifying. Hamilton's rival Sebastian Vet- tel had been the favourite to take the glory under the floodlights of the Marina Bay Street Circuit. But the Ferrari driver, who trails Hamilton by 30 points in the championship, finished only third, with Max Verstappen sec- ond for Red Bull. Hamilton headed into yester- day's session having failed to trouble the top of the order in any of the three practice sessions here. Indeed, the Singapore venue is supposed to be suited to Ferrari and a bogey track for Mercedes. But the defending champion pulled out an astonishing lap to claim the 79th pole of his career, and finish a third of a second faster than Verstappen. Vettel was an enormous six- tenths slower than his rival, while Valtteri Bottas in the sister Mercedes machinery finished three-quarters of a second down on Hamilton in fourth. Starting from the front is cru- cial at this twisty and slow-speed temporary track, with seven pole-sitters of the 10 races con- tested in Singapore taking the chequered flag. And moments after delivering yet another of his one-lap mas- terclasses, Hamilton was visibly shaking with the emotion of a performance which edges him ever closer to a fifth champion- ship. "Wow," he said. "That lap felt like magic and I don't know where it came from. It just all came together, and today I man- aged for that one lap to get it right. "I am super overwhelmed and my heart is racing. I might have an anxiety attack in a second. "It felt special. I don't feel there was a moment in the lap where I ran wide or there were any prob- lems. It felt like one of the best laps that I remember driving." A deflated Vettel added: "It is not ideal. We wanted to get pole and we didn't. "It was a messy qualifying ses- sion, and there was too much time missing. The laps were not good enough so it was not what we wanted." Kimi Raikkonen finished fifth for Ferrari ahead of Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo in sixth. Fernando Alonso, entering the swansong of his career, missed out on progressing to Q3 by just one-tenth of a second. McLaren informed Alonso he had qualified 11th. "Nice," the Spaniard, 37, re- plied. His team-mate, Stoffel Vandoorne, who will be re- placed by British teenager Lan- do Norris next season, was more than a second down on Alonso and lines up in 18th for Sunday's race. Elsewhere, there was more misery for British team Williams after Sergey Sirotkin and Lance Stroll finished 19th and last re- spectively. The pair were an eye-watering 1.4 seconds slower than any oth- er team. Lewis Hamilton grabs pole for Singapore Grand Prix