Lewis Hamilton upset the odds to put his Mercedes on pole position for the Singapore Grand Prix following a scintillating lap in qualifying.

Hamilton's rival Sebastian Vettel 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 second for Red Bull.

"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 problems. 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 session, 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, replied. His team-mate, Stoffel Vandoorne, who will be replaced by British teenager Lando 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 respectively.

The pair were an eye-watering 1.4 seconds slower than any other team.