Red Bull’s Max Verstappen will take pole position for the Singapore Grand Prix sprint race on Friday, having pipped Mercedes driver George Russell, who will join him on the front row at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.
Verstappen, who had never previously taken pole or won a race in Singapore, set the fastest time of one minute 31.156 seconds, 0.120 seconds quicker than Russell.
Australia’s Oscar Piastri qualified fourth-fastest, just ahead of McLaren teammate Lando Norris.
“It’s closer in Singapore. Your lap itself, you’re pushing as hard as you think is possible, close to the walls in places,” Verstappen said.
“Once we bolted on the soft tyres, it felt like the car was coming alive a little bit more. But I did not expect this, so, of course, very happy to be first.
“The last few races we’ve been a lot stronger, but of course this track still highlights a few little weaknesses in the car. But we managed to drive with them as well as possible.”
Verstappen was investigated by the stewards for overtaking Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton under the yellow flags in SQ1. However, they accepted the Dutchman’s explanation that braking could have created an unsafe situation and he had reduced his speed by lifting off the throttle afterwards.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was third fastest, while Mercedes championship leader Kimi Antonelli, who leads Russell by 84 points, was only seventh quickest.
Russell was the fastest in the only practice session earlier on Friday, but his power unit penalty will not affect his position on the grid for Saturday’s sprint.
However, the FIA handed the Briton a 40-place grid penalty for Sunday after he incurred a 10-place penalty for each of four additional elements, effectively consigning him to the back of the pack.
“We’ve been competitive all day, from the first laps in FP1. We obviously topped the time sheets there,” Russell said.
“We knew Max was fast and he went on a slightly different strategy from us in Q3, just doing the one lap. Who knows what was best, but pretty satisfied with the P2.
“It’s going to be very challenging. The grip left to right here is a big difference. The drivers on the pole side last year had a big advantage, so it’s probably going to be trying to maintain P2.”
Sergio Perez brought an end to the first sprint qualifying session when he hit a barrier. (Getty Images: Clive Rose)
The first sprint qualifying session was red flagged when Cadillac’s Sergio Perez crashed into a barrier and attempted to nurse his car back into the pits, leaving behind debris from his front wing that marshals needed to remove.
That effectively gave drivers one lap to advance to SQ2, and Verstappen was one of the last drivers to set a lap time, with the Dutchman topping the time sheets.
A glitch in the systems delayed the start of SQ2, with the FIA saying some lap times had not been registered. But the FIA added that the issue had been resolved and the “current timings are considered correct”.
Moreover, “overtake mode” was not available after the red flag period during SQ1. It was then activated for a period of 27 seconds before being deactivated again.
“The FIA acknowledges that this unfortunate human error had an impact on the performance of certain cars based on the timing of their run and their position around the lap,” it said.
“The second and third periods of Sprint Qualifying were not affected.”
A software bug also caused chaos last weekend. Cars slowed to a crawl on two formation laps that were held after heavy rain at Sepang forced the original start of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia to be aborted.
Reuters/ABC
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