This is your five-minute warning. Qualifying will be split into three sections, with the first lasting 18 minutes and seeing the six slowest drivers eliminated before the times are reset.

Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel, headphones one, leaves the Red Bull hospitality unit and heads over to the garage.

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen says his best mate in Formula 1 is Sebastian Vettel, who will be his team-mate at Ferrari next year. In an entertaining quick-fire Q&A, the Finn reveals he can't dance and his signature dish is meat loaf.

Image source, Getty Images

It wouldn't be the Japanese Grand Prix without the fans and their hats with cars stuck on top. Kamui Kobayashi has been to Suzuka twice and both times he has scored points. A repeat performance this year, though, is unlikely.

Dan Burdett:, external Only other possibility is that Alonso doesn't race at all next year. He wants a 3rd world title, but is McLaren the place to do it?

Kishere Films:, external F1 is my life - I've travelled to four F1's this year! If Jenson Button leaves McLaren I will literally lose faith in the sport!!!

Edward Williamson:, external McLaren currently have the dominant engine in F1 in their car and are nowhere. The engine isn't the problem, it's the car.

Jennie Gow
BBC Radio 5 live pit-lane reporter

"Looks like all will be well for Lewis Hamilton in quali."

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen has had a new power unit installed since final practice, reports BBC F1 pit-lane reporter Tom Clarkson. The team needed just two hours and 10 minutes. Remarkable.

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso:, external Times will be again very close between 3rd and 10th. Need a good lap...;)

Image source, Getty Images

Nico Rosberg and Daniel Ricciardo (pictured) are the only drivers to have made the Q3 top 10 shoot-out at all 14 race weekends this season.

Image source, Mercedes

Mercedes:, external Some serious work going on behind here! Boys working very hard to get the cars ready.

Caterham team boss Manfredi Ravetto tells BBC F1 pit-lane reporter Tom Clarkson that it is "more than likely" they will move factory. He adds that it was a "mistake" not to sever links with former owners.

Image source, AP

Max Verstappen was the talk of the paddock on Friday after his impressive debut for Toro Rosso in first practice at Suzuka. The 17-year-old finished 12th fastest, just four tenths of a second behind Daniil Kvyat, who has close to a full season of experience.

"I can't complain really, I enjoyed it a lot and that was the main thing - just to get experience and make a lot of laps," he said.

"I think in general it was more about learning the car, there is quite some difference compared to the 2012 car so I just build it up lap-by-lap and by the end you get used to it. It is always good to drive an F1 car.

"I just did what I had to do. I was not even close to the limit. I was just driving safely without doing any crazy stuff."

Image source, Getty Images

It feels like a long time since a Ferrari was on pole position in dry conditions - and that's because it is. It has now been more than four years, with the last one coming at the 2010 Singapore GP when Fernando Alonso stuck the car on P1.

Alonso has not qualified in the top-three this year, despite finishing FP2 in the top-three on eight occasions in 2014 (and never being lower than second in any practice session in Singapore).

This is your 30-minute warning until the start of qualifying.

Image source, Getty Images

Qualifying in Singapore was incredibly close with the first nine drivers in Q3 being separated by just 0.569 seconds. That gap was smaller than the gap that separated Mercedes from all of the other drivers in qualifying in both Belgium and Italy.

Four teams were also within 0.54% of Mercedes' pole time in Marina Bay - which again, is a smaller gap than separated the championship leaders from all other teams' best laps at eight grands prix weekends in 2014.

Unfortunately for Mercedes' rivals, the Brackley-based squad are around a second faster than anyone else.

Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne, who is without a seat for next year, believes that what former team-mate at Toro Rosso Daniel Ricciardo is doing now at Red Bull makes him look good.

Image source, Red Bull Racing Spy

Red Bull Racing Spy on Twitter:, external "Lady in a wedding dress lapping Suzuka standing up in an NSX. 2nd weirdest thing Spy's seen this morning."

Ferrari-bound four-time reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel has started all five Japanese Grands Prix in has contested from the front row.

He lined up on P2 last year following four successive years on pole.

Continuing that record would be a fine achievement considering Mercedes pace advantage over his Red Bull team but stranger things have happened this year.

When Eddie Jordan asks about Lewis Hamilton future at Mercedes, co-team boss Toto Wolff jokes: "If you want to leave your wife, you need to find a better one.

"We're very happy with Lewis, I think he is happy with us. We have a good spirit in this team so at the moment we don't see why we would want to change the situation and not continue with Lewis."

"If you go fast, you hit the barriers sometimes," says Mercedes co-team boss Toto Wolff on Lewis Hamilton's crash. It looks good that we will be able to put the car together, but you never know.

"If everything is being put together like it was before, Lewis performance will be as good before. He was clearly the quickest. Of course it's far from being perfect, but I think he has a very heavy right foot!"