One lap, one hearing, no penalty: Verstappen keeps Singapore Sprint pole
Russell is 0.120 seconds behind on the older Mercedes spec, Leclerc is third, and Antonelli seventh with the upgrade
Max Verstappen took pole for Saturday’s Singapore Sprint with a 1:31.156 on his only run in SQ3, 0.120 seconds quicker than George Russell. He keeps it after a stewards’ hearing: they found that he passed Lewis Hamilton under yellow flags in SQ1, but decided not to penalise him.
Charles Leclerc qualified third for Ferrari, ahead of the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris. Hamilton was sixth and Kimi Antonelli seventh, 0.693 seconds off pole.
Three laps in SQ3 were enough
The official classification shows Verstappen completed three laps in SQ3, an out lap, a single timed lap and the in lap. Russell needed six laps, Leclerc five. Verstappen had already been fastest in SQ1 with a 1:33.477, while Leclerc topped SQ2 with a 1:32.246, ahead of Hamilton.
Verstappen himself sounded surprised. “The car was coming alive more and more, but I didn’t expect this,” he said in his television interview after the session.
He comes to Marina Bay as the winner of last Sunday’s race at Sepang, his first victory of the season, at a circuit where he has never won. The full order is on our Singapore Grand Prix 2026 results page.
Seventy km/h slower, and no penalty
Verstappen overtook Hamilton before Turn 8 at 20:35 local time, on a push lap and with both cars inside a single yellow flag sector. The stewards ruled that this breached the yellow flag rules, but issued no penalty. In their decision, they wrote that Verstappen “reacted appropriately to the yellow flag by lifting off throttle and reducing speed”, about 70 km/h slower at that point than on another push lap, and called the pass “an unfortunate consequence of the significant closing speed differential.” Verstappen told them that avoiding it would have needed heavy braking that could have been unsafe.
SQ1 had already been interrupted. Sergio Pérez hit the barrier and his damaged front wing ended up on the track, which brought out the red flag with 6:09 remaining. Pérez qualified 20th, between Alexander Albon and his Cadillac teammate Valtteri Bottas.
Two other drivers did lose a lap in that phase: the stewards deleted laps by Oscar Piastri and Valtteri Bottas for driving through a double waved yellow sector. For how the stewards work and what they can hand out, see our stewards and penalties explainer.
Old spec second, new spec seventh
Mercedes split its cars for this weekend. Antonelli, the championship leader, kept the upgraded package from Sepang with a new front wing, while Russell went back to the specification he won with in Baku. On the first day of comparison, the older car was 0.573 seconds quicker in SQ3.
Russell’s front-row start only counts on Saturday. The stewards gave him a 40-place grid drop for Sunday’s Grand Prix after he fitted a fifth engine, turbocharger and exhaust and a fourth MGU-K, so he starts the race from the back. The penalty does not apply to the Sprint.
Two cars in SQ3 without a time
Isack Hadjar and Pierre Gasly both reached SQ3, but the stewards deleted their only lap there for leaving the track, Gasly at Turn 2 and Hadjar at Turn 19. They line up ninth and tenth. Liam Lawson was eighth for Racing Bulls. Franco Colapinto missed SQ3 in 11th, 0.094 seconds behind Gasly’s SQ2 time, with Nico Hulkenberg 12th and Gabriel Bortoleto 14th for Audi on the team’s first Formula 1 night race weekend.
Our hunch
Mercedes wanted a clean comparison, and the first answer is hard to ignore: the car Russell won with in Baku beat the upgrade by more than half a second. One session on a bumpy street track is not a verdict, but if Saturday’s qualifying shows the same gap, the team has a decision to make before Austin.
Verstappen’s lap matters beyond the Sprint. With Russell starting Sunday’s Grand Prix from the back, the Red Bull now looks like the car to beat at a track where he has never won. With the stewards leaving his pole alone, the pressure is on everyone else.
What to watch on Saturday
- Whether Russell can beat Verstappen into Turn 1 before his Sunday penalty sends him to the back.
- The Sprint at 11:00 CEST (17:00 local), the last Sprint of 2026.
- Grand Prix qualifying at 15:00 CEST, and whether Mercedes keeps both specifications.
- Whether Pirelli’s expected role for the soft tyre shows up in the Sprint, as covered in our Singapore preview.
Can Russell beat Verstappen to the Sprint win from second, or does Max turn his pole into a win? Tell us in the comments.
