Brilliant Russell takes Singapore pole position
Mercedes' George Russell took a surprising pole position at Singapore while Verstappen or McLaren looked like favourites. Verstappen was content with second and confident for the race while Oscar Piastri was the fastest McLaren driver in third.
Qualifying for the original F1 night race kicked off with both Kick Saubers taking to the track first, quickly followed by pretty much everyone except for Alonso. With everybody on the soft tyres straight away, Verstappen immediately showed he was comfortable with his Red Bull and went fastest of all those who set a time in the first 5 minutes. That was 2 tenths better than Hamilton with Norris, Hadjar and Leclerc next up in the rankings.
Piastri missed out on an early lap as another driver went wide at Turn 1 and caused a yellow flag situation right when Piastri was starting his lap.
Bearman slotted into second with his first lap a few minutes later, followed by Russell going third fastest. Hamilton and Leclerc stayed out for another two laps and progressed into second and third, much closer to Verstappen than they were on their first laps with fresh rubber. The Dutchman meanwhile was already chilling in his car.
Hadjar briefly went atop the timing sheet with 6 minutes remaining but that effort was quickly improved upon by Norris.
Antonelli was up next and went second fastest. That was an impressive lap for the Mercedes driver after seemingly struggling here and there on quick laps in free practice sessions earlier this weekend. Hamilton did better still with just a minute left on the clock, improving on Norris's earlier benchmark by little more than a tenth of a second.
10 seconds from the end of the session Gasly parked with a technical issue, forcing others to back out of their laps and sealing the fate of Bortoleto, Stroll, Colapinto, Ocon and Gasly.
Tsunoda narrowly escaped elimination by going 10th fastest even while passing through that yellow flag zone. The start of Q2 was subsequently delayed to investigate whether the Japanese had backed off enough. Several minutes later, the stewards announced that the incident was to be investigated after the session, similarly for Russell, Bortoleto and Stroll. The latter three however didn't need that final lap as Russell was already sure of going through and Bortoleto and Stroll would've been eliminated anyway. Still, penalties could as such follow later.
33 minutes after the start of Q1, qualifying could finally continue with 15 minutes of Q2 with the 15 remaining cars. Verstappen was first in the queue out of the pitlane and somewhat predictably set a banker that nobody could beat. Piastri was closest, followed by Hamilton while Leclerc struggled throughout his entire lap, endured a loose rear and scrubbed the wall to end up 13th only, desperately needing a better second outing.
The same was true for Antonelli as the Mercedes driver saw his laptime deleted. Lawson, Tsunoda and Albon were the others who needed to improve to avoid elimination.
Mercedes didn't sit about and set both its drivers out before others were thinking of doing so. Antonelli had a moment at Turn 4 and nearly scrubbed the wall but after that had a composed lap to set the fastest time. Russell improved on that again while Verstappen moved back up into second with his second effort.
After improvements by Bearman, Alonso and Hulkenberg, Leclerc was last out on track and got the lap he needed, making it through into Q3 and eliminating Nico Hulkenberg.
Russell and Antonelli then kicked off Q3 with Norris up next. Two minutes into the session, everybody was on track and Russell nearly ready to start his lap.
Russell's first sector was immediately right on the money. The lap continued to be strong and a slight brush with the right rear in the penultimate corner showed how hard Russell was trying. Antonelli stranded at 3 tenths with Norris another extra tenth behind. Hamilton slotted up in 4th and Leclerc in 5th.
Piastri meanwhile was on a strong lap, just like Verstappen. Between the two it was Verstappen who proved fastest, but neither managed to beat Russell's lap.
So Russell was on provisional pole, nearly two tenths up on Verstappen with Piastri and Antonelli more than three tenths down. Hadjar sat 8th, followed by Bearman and Alonso with 10th, 1.1s slower than Russell.
Two minutes and 5 seconds from the end of the session, Norris was the first to start his second attempt, trying to avoid any possible yellow flags that would prevent him from properly completing his effort. The second sector was a personal best but other sectors weren't, resulting in a failure to progress up past 5th.
Russell meanwhile improved another 0.007 seconds. Piastri, Leclerc and Hamilton all failed to improve with Verstappen eventually also admitting that Russell could not be beaten today.
