Verstappen beats Leclerc to pole in Singapore

Max Verstappen has claimed pole position for the Singapore Grand Prix for the first time in his career, denying the Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton in another competitive Qualifying hour.

Although it was Hamilton who looked to be the favourite after setting the pace in Q1 and Q2, Verstappen’s first effort of 1:31.373s was all he needed to qualify P1 and continue his strong weekend at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.

Like several of his rivals, Hamilton was unable to improve on his final lap and settled for P3 behind Leclerc, who was just 0.054s slower than Verstappen. They outperformed Kimi Antonelli and Lando Norris in P4 and P5 respectively, with George Russell initially taking P6 with the knowledge of his incoming grid drop.

After recovering from the collision with Norris in the Sprint, Oscar Piastri was seventh ahead of Pierre Gasly and the Racing Bulls of Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad.

Nico Hulkenberg missed out on a place in the top 10, leading Haas’ Ollie Bearman and Esteban Ocon as Carlos Sainz took P14 for Williams. Gabriel Bortoleto also fell short in the second Audi, finishing P15 in front of Alpine driver Franco Colapinto, who hit the barrier on his final lap.

Despite their prediction that this weekend presented a good opportunity, Aston Martin failed to progress to Q2 as Fernando Alonso’s messy final lap left him in P16. He qualified ahead of Williams’ Alex Albon and team mate Lance Stroll, with the Cadillac pair of Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas following in P20 and P21 respectively.

It was a nightmare day for Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar – after retiring from the Sprint, his reliability issues continued and he was unable to complete a representative lap, ending the session at the bottom of the order. As is the case for everyone who was classified behind Russell, he will gain a position once the Briton’s grid penalty is imposed.

Q1

After a remarkably eventful Sprint that saw Russell crash out of the lead and the McLaren drivers collide – as well as retirements for another seven drivers – attention quickly turned to the Qualifying hour. The earlier rain had passed and the track dried out heading into the evening, but it remained to be seen who would master the Marina Bay streets.

As the light turned green at the end of the pit lane, plenty of drivers were quick to head out and face the humid conditions in Singapore, eager to complete some banker laps following the earlier chaos.

The busy start to the session saw Ocon lock up and come close to crashing into the wall, reporting that he had “no brakes” as he managed to reverse back onto the track. He wasn’t the only one finding it difficult, with Stroll making a similar mistake shortly after.

There was greater pain to come for Hadjar, who had retired from the Sprint with a mechanical issue, as he went deep before claiming that his engine had switched off, prompting more yellow flags while he crept around the circuit.

They didn’t have a significant impact on the first flying laps as the top teams exchanged P1 on the timesheets, with Norris, Piastri, Hamilton and Verstappen all battling to set the fastest lap. It was the reigning World Champion who succeeded, posting a 1:33.047s to clear his team mate by 0.029s.

Meanwhile, Russell – set to take a hefty grid penalty after changing his engine for the Singapore Grand Prix – told Mercedes to keep an eye on the brakes as he was “smelling fire”, but delivered the necessary time to move into P6 behind Antonelli.

The Briton was then demoted after eye-catching laps from Audi’s Hulkenberg and Haas’ Bearman, both of whom were looking to build on the momentum from their points-scoring finishes in the Sprint.

Back at the top, Hamilton and Norris broke into the 1:32s bracket, with the former finding an advantage of 0.095s on a brand-new set of soft tyres. He was joined by Leclerc to make it a Ferrari 1-2 just as Antonelli’s latest effort was deleted for track limits.

Unfortunately for Hadjar, his reliability woes continued and he returned to the pits without a representative time on the board, confirming him as one of the drivers eliminated from Q1. The pressure was on for the others in the drop zone, but only Ocon and Lindblad were able to improve, knocking out Alonso, Albon, Stroll, Perez, Bottas and Hadjar.

Knocked out: Alonso, Albon, Stroll, Perez, Bottas, Hadjar

Q2

The 16 remaining drivers took to the track for Q2, with Antonelli posting a time of 1m 32.165s to beat his Silver Arrows team mate to the top spot before Hamilton picked up where he left off and seized P1 by nearly four-tenths.

While no one could match the Briton on their first attempt, Verstappen split the Mercedes pair in P3, complaining of “insanely bad shifts” as he wound up half a second down on Hamilton’s noteworthy effort.

Lawson, Lindblad and Hulkenberg occupied the lower positions of the top 10 following the opening runs, but there was still enough time for those further below to improve. Of those, Bortoleto suffered a scary moment on a push lap and went again, taking P15 from Alpine’s Colapinto.

Elimination was no concern for Hamilton, who went even faster to set a new benchmark of 1:31.529s, sending him straight into the final segment of Qualifying along with the remaining drivers from the front four teams, as well as the Racing Bulls machines and Gasly.

Hulkenberg came closest to squeezing into Q3 but ultimately missed out, with Bearman, Ocon, Sainz, Bortoleto and Colapinto – who hit the wall on his final lap – also enduring Q2 exits.

Knocked out: Hulkenberg, Bearman, Ocon, Sainz, Bortoleto, Colapinto

Q3

With 13 minutes on the clock, would anyone be able to topple Hamilton and snatch pole position? Verstappen was the first to try and do so on the soft compound, setting a time of 1:31.373s to edge out Leclerc.

Achieving the fastest middle sector wasn’t enough for Hamilton to return to P1, but he was only a tenth adrift of the Dutchman after his first timed lap and seemed to have left some performance on the table, so it would all come down to the final few minutes.

As the second runs got underway, most of the drivers struggled to find any major improvement with the exception of Leclerc, who beat his previous time and surged into P2 behind Verstappen.

Hamilton therefore dropped to third place ahead of Antonelli, Norris, Russell and Piastri, while Gasly kept the midfield battle alive by leapfrogging Lawson to claim P8 and leave the Racing Bulls pair in P9 and P10.

The 2026 Singapore Grand Prix is set to begin at 20:00 local time on Sunday (13:00 GMT). Can Verstappen finally take victory around the streets of Singapore?