Russell darts to pole from Verstappen

George Russell clinched pole position for the Singapore Grand Prix, delivering two laps good enough for Formula 1 pole in Q3 as Max Verstappen bailed on his final tour.

The Mercedes driver posted a 1m29.165s on his first Q3 flying lap out of the blocks, despite a brief brush with the wall out of Turn 17, and almost four tenths up on his best tour of Q2.

This withstood a siege of laps from his nearest rivals; team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli was almost 0.4s away, and Piastri found a fraction over the Italian, but couldn’t overturn Russell’s lap. Verstappen got closest, but was almost two-tenths shy on his opening effort.

Russell then raised by the bar by a smidgen on his second tour, finding 0.007s on his previous best, but there were few other improvements further down the order; Verstappen’s final effort was affected by Lando Norris on the McLaren driver’s cooldown lap back to the pits.

Championship leader Piastri took third on the grid ahead of Antonelli, while Norris could only manage fifth after his second effort only offered a minor improvement in time.

Lewis Hamilton outqualified Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc for sixth, while Isack Hadjar took eighth on the grid for his first Singapore GP. Ollie Bearman and Fernando Alonso completed the top 10.

Nico Hulkenberg was dumped out of Q2 at the last moment as Leclerc rescued a top-10 start after a difficult opening lap. Leclerc touched the wall at Turn 14 and was sat in 13th place ahead of the final runs.

This became 14th when Antonelli extricated himself out of Q2’s bottom five, having had his first lap deleted for a track limits violation at Turn 2.

Hulkenberg had contributed to Alex Albon’s drop into the bottom five as both Williams drivers struggled to find pace, but soon found himself out of luck when Leclerc’s last-ditch effort proved good enough for sixth.

Albon took 12th ahead of Carlos Sainz, while Liam Lawson claimed 14th after shaking off crashes in FP2 and FP3. Yuki Tsunoda struggled to get a tune out of his Red Bull throughout the session and only landed in 15th – bottom of the Q2 order.

Pierre Gasly’s stoppage in the final stages of Q1 put a damper on a handful of attempts to break out of the bottom five, as the Alpine driver pulled over with a suspected hydraulics issue at Turn 11.

Gabriel Bortoleto was unable to improve enough on his final lap and consigned the Brazilian to his first Q1 exit since the British GP, as Lance Stroll was also eliminated in the opening phase.

Franco Colapinto outqualified team-mate Gasly, whose issue left him unable to progress from last on the grid, as Esteban Ocon split the two Alpines on the grid.

F1 Singapore GP – Qualifying results

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