Singapore (AFP) - Sebastian Vettel was left fuming on Saturday when mechanical problems knocked him out of the first round of qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix - meaning last year's winner will start from the back of the grid.

The Ferrari driver won last year's race from pole position for his fourth victory in Singapore, where he has topped the podium more times than anyone else.

But after limping round well off the pace in Q1, Vettel retreated to the Ferrari garage where engineers were unable to get him back on the road.

"It felt like an anti-roll bar broke but we need to have a look, what's most important is that the second car doesn't have damage like that," the German told reporters. "We couldn't save the car for the second qualifying and have a look, unfortunately we ran out of time.

"Obviously I was a bit annoyed because first we decided to go for another lap but it wasn't really any quicker. "Then we decided to pit to try and fix it but there was no time to do it."