Lewis Hamilton was left surprised by the pace title rival Sebastian Vettel found to claim pole position in Singapore, saying fifth was all he could manage to extract from his Mercedes.
As expected, Mercedes struggled to replicate its usual performance levels throughout qualifying in Singapore, which started with Red Bull seemingly in control. In Q3, Vettel snatched the initiative from the Red Bull drivers with two stunning laps, meaning three cars will start between the lead Ferrari and Hamilton.
Hamilton felt happy he had maximised his own effort -- which left him less than 0.1s shy of Kimi Raikkonen -- but admitted Mercedes had doubted Ferrari had the pace to snatch pole.
"We knew that we would come here and it would be difficult," Hamilton said. "I think every year we've come here it's been relatively difficult for us generally but we knew today would be tough. We definitely didn't anticipate Ferrari would be as strong as they were, I thought Red Bull would be as quick as they were but we remained hopeful.
"I got everything I could out of the car -- I got everything and more, I literally threw the sink at it. I squeezed every bit out of it and was just hoping... "
Asked if he could take comfort from the fact Singapore is likely to be Mercedes worst circuit in the title run-in, he said: "I don't know where Ferrari has picked up that pace. It's strange, from race to race it's a little bit different between us. But the races coming up I think we'll be strong."
Qualifying would suggest Hamilton is set to lose his slender three-point lead over Vettel in the championship on Sunday. The Englishman believes he will have to be patient on Sunday evening if he wants to minimise the damage to his championship hopes.
"Well this is a crap track for overtaking so it's usually just a long, long train. So it's going to be difficult. Start is an opportunity, strategy, Safety Car, who knows, but tomorrow we're just going to have to play the long game. It's a marathon, not a sprint, so we'll try and take that method into tomorrow."