Singapore F1 GP: Verstappen continues his recent domination with pole

Max Verstappen took pole position for the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix, ahead of the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton as Mercedes struggled.

Championship leader Kimi Antonelli and George Russell only finished fourth and sixth, while Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Isack Hadjar will start from the back of the grid.

Q1 – Hadjar missed his Red Bull

Laurent Mekies, Red Bull Racing team principal, Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images

The first qualifying segment got off to a poor start for Esteban Ocon, who stalled and appeared to brush the wall at turn 13. Moments later, Lance Stroll suffered a similar fate at turn 7. Both apparently escaped these errors unscathed.

Hadjar also had an outing but ended up stopping on track. “The engine is stopped,” he reported; the Red Bull driver finally managed to restart his car and stopped with no time on the board.

Hours after colliding with Oscar Piastri in the sprint race, Lando Norris set the first pace in 1m33.047s, 0.029s faster than his teammate. Verstappen and Hamilton were 0.194 and 0.264 seconds behind respectively, with Mercedes duo Antonelli and Russell more than half a second behind.

With five minutes remaining, Arvid Lindblad, Alex Albon, Sergio Perez, Valtteri Bottas, Gabriel Bortoleto and Hadjar were the last six drivers; Stroll was just 0.04 seconds ahead of the 17th-placed Racing Bulls. Things did not improve for Hadjar: “Same problem, I lost the gears,” he says. The Frenchman returned to the pit lane and never came out.

While Hamilton took the lead with a time of 1m32.680 and improved it to 1m32.429, three tenths faster than Leclerc and Norris after their respective improvements, Antonelli and Russell finished 12th and 13th, almost 1.2 seconds behind.

Further down the rankings, major progress from Lindblad and Bortoleto pushed both Aston Martins out of the top 16; Alonso and Stroll’s day ended there.

Release in the first trimester: Alonso, Albon, Walk, Pérez, Bottas, Hadjar

Q2 – Hamilton in the lead, although challenged by Verstappen

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari

Photo by: Clive Rose / Formula 1 via Getty Images

Hamilton maintained a similar advantage during the opening runs of Q2, with his 1’31”766 putting him four tenths ahead of Antonelli. Verstappen was more than half a second adrift, complaining of “incredibly bad” gear changes, followed by Russell, Norris, Piastri and Leclerc – those five drivers less than a tenth and a half behind.

There were theoretically three places in Q3 for the midfield teams, and with five minutes remaining these were occupied by Liam Lawson, Lindblad and Nico Hulkenberg; Pierre Gasly was two tenths behind the German, 11th.

Gasly actually improved by six tenths on his last attempt, outpacing all of his main rivals; The Racing Bulls managed to regain the advantage over the Alpine, but the Frenchman still took the last place for the top 10 on penalties, with Hülkenberg only gaining two tenths behind.

After cutting the wall in turn 17, Franco Colapinto found himself 16th, 1.2 seconds behind his teammate.

Meanwhile, Hamilton continued his dominance with a time of 1m31.529s, which only Verstappen came close to, in 1m31.639s. Norris and Leclerc were behind by 0.366 and 0.424, respectively. Antonelli and Russell, once again, were more than half a second behind.

Release in the second trimester: Hulkenberg, Bearman, Ocon, Sainz, Bortoleto, Colapinto

Q3 – Verstappen wins in the final phase

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Lillian Suwanrumpha / AFP via Getty Images

It was actually Verstappen who set the pace from the start of Q3 with a time of 1m31.373, with Hamilton recording a time of 1m31.496 despite being almost three tenths quicker than the Dutchman in sector two.

Antonelli moved up to an encouraging third place in 1’31”562, with Leclerc, Norris and Russell all four tenths behind the leader. Piastri, however, was 0.820 seconds behind, having been slower than anyone except Lindblad in the final sector.

Verstappen and Hamilton failed to improve on their latest attempts; the Briton was pipped by his Ferrari teammate Leclerc for second place, with the Monegasque being 0.054 seconds slower than the Red Bull pole-sitter.

Piastri was the only other top team driver to improve, by some margin – more than three tenths – but it wasn’t enough for him to gain a position; he took seventh place behind Antonelli, Norris and Russell.

Gasly was best of the rest for Alpine with a time of 1m32.225, while Lawson and Lindblad finished 0.144s and 0.556s slower respectively to round out the top 10.

Singapore GP F1 Qualifying Results

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