Motor Sport / Vin Lowe / 27 September 2009 / Leave a comment Bet Now

Red Bull is back in the running for the Singapore Grand Prix, with Sebastian Vettel sharing the front row with the McLaren pole-sitter, Lewis Hamilton. In the second row of the grid, Nico Rosberg in the Williams starts from third place (his first top-three qualifying since 2006) and Mark Webber's Red Bull from fourth, writes Marissa van Uden.

A few surprises in qualifying muddied the field somewhat. Reubens Barrichello lost his car into the wall in Q3, closing down qualifying in the last minute with a red flag. This meant Rosberg and Vettel had no chance to attempt to snatch the pole of Hamilton, despite putting in extremely fast sector times.

Barrichello would have placed fifth, but due to a gearbox change he has a five-place grid penalty and will start from P10. His car will have to be rebuilt due to damage from the crash, so he will also be driving an unfamiliar car for Sunday's night-time Grand Prix. Nevertheless, he starts ahead of team mate and championship-title contender Jenson Button, who made several errors and failed to make it through to the third session of qualifying. Button starts from P12, making it an altogether disastrous start to the weekend for the Brawn team.

Fernando Alonso is starting from P5, next to Timo Glock in the Toyota. The second Renault, driven by Romain Grosjean, is starting from P19 after braking issues. Grosjean's weekend started badly during Friday practice when his Renault spun off on the very same corner that has been under scrutiny for the last few weeks, thanks to Nelson Piquet's intentional crash in 2008, which was masterminded in a race-fixing conspiracy by Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds. After receiving a life ban from motor sport for his role in the fiasco, Briatore declared that he would win in the end, and vowed he would "have a great party" to which only the people sticking by him would be invited.

The BMW Saubers make up the fourth row with Nick Heidfeld in P7 and Robert Kubica in P8. They are followed by Heikki Kovalainen's McLaren (P9), Barrichello's Brawn (P10), Heikki Kovalainen's McLaren (P11), and Button (P12). Kimi Räikkönen (P13) could not find the correct balance on the Ferrari, which has seen no recent developments as the team has shifted their focus to 2010.

The back of the grid is made up of Sebastien Buemi's Toro Rosso (P14), Jarno Trulli's Toyota (P15), and Adrian Sutil's Force India (P16). The Force India's recently showed what they could do at a low down-force circuit, but at this high down-force track they were unable to compete. Jaime Alguersuari's Toro Rosso qualified in P17 and Gian Carlo Fisichella, who is still struggling to find the right driving style for his new Ferrari, qualified in P18. Romain Grosjean shares the back of the grid with Vitantonio Liuzzi in the other Force India.