Norris beats Verstappen and takes pole while Ferrari blunders

Lando Norris secured pole position for the Singapore Grand Prix ahead of Max Verstappen in an interrupted Q3, as last year’s winner Carlos Sainz was eliminated in the top-10 shootout.

Sainz lost control of his Ferrari on the exit of Turn 17 while preparing his car for a fast lap and eventually crashed his car into the wall, resulting in a red flag.

Verstappen set a time of 1m29.791s to take the lead, but this happened under double yellow periods immediately after Sainz’s accident and so the yellows were cancelled. The incident also cost Norris a chance to move into the lead, as his two purple sectors were ultimately cancelled by the red flag.

When the session resumed 15 minutes later, none of those who had not completed a lap opted for a quick tour on used tyres, but instead waited for the final crescendo with a fresh set of soft tyres.

Oscar Piastri, nominally on provisional pole, set a new record of 1:29.953 minutes, but Norris quickly beat it with a 1:29.525 minutes. Verstappen came closest, setting a lap time of 1:29.728 minutes to secure the front row of the grid.

Both Mercedes secured the second row ahead of Piastri, while Lewis Hamilton finished third, 0.026 seconds ahead of George Russell, and the Brackley team appeared more competitive on Saturday.

It was a miserable session for Ferrari as Leclerc’s lap was deleted, but it was only enough for seventh place as Nico Hülkenberg’s fastest lap was four thousandths of a second faster.

Leclerc and Sainz will therefore start from ninth and tenth place behind Fernando Alonso and Yuki Tsunoda in row four.

Alex Albon was just 0.024s away from making Q3 after being pushed out by Fernando Alonso at the very end of the session. The Williams driver was heard to criticise his team for a lack of communication during tyre preparation before his first lap. Although he improved the next time, it was ultimately not enough.

Franco Colapinto was in the relegation zone before the final Q1 runs, but the Argentinian drove his Williams to the ninth fastest time of the session. However, he too ended up on the wrong side of the cut-off in Q2, just 0.007 seconds behind his teammate.

Sergio Perez was a key driver in Q2, qualifying only 13th in the session and one lap behind teammate Verstappen by 0.9 seconds, ahead of the returning Kevin Magnussen and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon.

Daniel Ricciardo was pushed into the relegation zone by Ocon at the end of Q1 after reaching 12th place on his final lap and then proving vulnerable to the improvements of the drivers behind him.

Lance Stroll also did not make it through and Pierre Gasly improved on his final performance, but this only made the difference between 18th and 19th place.

The Frenchman overtook Valtteri Bottas but was eliminated in Q1. The Saubers held the lead, with Bottas half a second ahead of his teammate Zhou Guanyu.