Lando Norris and Max Verstappen will line up on the front row together for the Singapore Grand Prix, after a qualifying session delayed by a red flag due to a crash for Carlos Sainz.
Sainz had just moved over for Oscar Piastri to complete his first timed lap of Q3, and was starting his own attempt when he had a big snap of oversteer. The Spaniard overcorrected and spun to the outside of the track, going backwards into the wall and bringing out the red flags.
Verstappen was the first car to come across Sainz and was so close to the Ferrari that the light panels had not yet gone yellow for him, although the presence of a green panel at the finish line meant he had been in the double waved yellow zone before the session was stopped and his timed lap was deleted.
Norris had not set a time at that stage so it came down to a one-lap shootout for the majority in Q3, and the McLaren driver duly converted his strong practice pace into pole position, setting a 1m29.525s.
Verstappen joined him on the front row with a 1m29.728s, edging Lewis Hamilton by 0.113s thanks mainly to a strong middle sector. Both Mercedes drivers will start on the second row, rebounding from their struggles in practice, while it turned into a disastrous end of qualifying for Ferrari as Charles Leclerc also saw his lap time deleted for running off at Turn 2.
Piastri will start from fifth ahead of an impressive Nico Hulkenberg, with Fernando Alonso seventh and Yuki Tsunoda eighth, in front of the two Ferraris who didn’t have a valid Q3 time.
The drama came after a largely incident-free first two parts of qualifying. The two Red Bull drivers went out early in Q2, with the team saying it was best for their tire preparation on the out-lap. Both were on used tires for the first run but Verstappen had his lap time deleted after a big moment at the final corner saw him run wide and exceed track limits, adding some jeopardy to his final attempt.
While Verstappen dealt with that easily to set the second-fastest time of that part of the session — behind Leclerc as Norris aborted once he was safe — the same couldn’t be said for his teammate. Sergio Perez was pushed down into the drop zone and couldn’t find enough improvement on his final attempt, ending up nearly a second slower than Verstappen and 13th overall.
Perez was beaten by both Williams drivers but Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto agonizingly missed out on Q3 by 0.024s and 0.031s respectively, with Albon complaining about the team’s use of tires. They were joined by Kevin Magnussen and Esteban Ocon, who will start in 14th and 15th.
Colapinto had a moment on his first timed lap of Q1 and tapped the wall at Turn 17, leaving him 19th after the first runs and needing a late improvement. He duly delivered, as did Perez and Russell — although the latter only in 13th — but Daniel Ricciardo’s session ended early as he dropped out in 16th, with an RB engineer caught on camera saying, “Not enough, is it?” to Liam Lawson as the Australian completed his lap.
Ricciardo’s result was put under more intense focus due to Tsunoda’s eventual position, and he was joined by Lance Stroll, Pierre Gasly, Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu in being eliminated in the first part of the qualifying session, as Stake’s lack of pace continued.
