Hamilton: One of my best pole positions ever

Lewis Hamilton hailed his performance for pole position at the Singapore Grand Prix as one of his very best qualifying performances. The Mercedes star took a 79th career pole with an utterly breath-taking lap at the Marina Bay Circuit to put himself in position to extend his championship lead.

Hamilton clocked a lap-record one minute 36.015 seconds to go three tenths quicker than his nearest rival Max Verstappen, with title rival Sebastian Vettel a massive six tenths further down.

Singapore has typically seen Mercedes struggle, although Hamilton won last year after the first-lap chaos between Vettel, Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen.

WHAT A LAP!!!! WHAT A LAP!!!! UNBELIEVABLE!!!!@LewisHamilton is on pole for the #SingaporeGP!!!!

GET IN THERE YOU ABSOLUTE BEAUTY!!!! #F1 pic.twitter.com/HvAtuFqzRZ — Mercedes-AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) September 15, 2018

With a 30-point buffer to Vettel, Sunday's race could provide a killer blow in the title fight and the Briton was overwhelmed with his outing.

"Wow, wow. That was a hard qualifying session," Hamilton said. "That lap felt like magic. I don't know where it came from but it all came together.

"Huge thank you to all the team. Everyone is working so hard to pull out extra bits. For that one lap I managed to get it right.

"Honestly I'm super overwhelmed. My heart is racing.

"I don't think there was a moment in the lap that was wide or any problems. It was just perfectly to the limit. It felt like one of the best laps I remember feeling."

MORE: Hamilton lights up Singapore to take pole