Verstappen beats Russell's old-spec Mercedes to Singapore sprint pole
Max Verstappen’s supreme form continued as he beat George Russell’s older-spec Mercedes to claim pole position for Formula 1's 2026 sprint race in Singapore.
Dominant Malaysia F1 race winner Verstappen only needed one lap in SQ3 to claim his first sprint race pole of the season with a 1m31.156s.
That was 0.120s quicker than his closest challenger, Russell, driving the older-spec Mercedes, while team-mate Kimi Antonelli was only seventh in the upgraded version.
Russell will have to take an engine penalty for the grand prix, but that won’t stop him starting Saturday's sprint race on the front row alongside Verstappen.
Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari was third quickest, ahead of the McLaren duo of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris. Lewis Hamilton was sixth in the second Ferrari, having set his SQ3 lap earlier than others.
Antonelli’s Mercedes was almost seven tenths off pole in seventh, ahead of Liam Lawson’s Racing Bulls and Isack Hadjar’s Red Bull, who lost a place on the fourth row after his SQ3 lap was deleted for a track limits infringement at the final corner.
Alpine team-mates Gasly and Franco Colapinto were split by 0.094s in SQ2, and that was the difference between advancing in 10th (Gasly qualified there in SQ3 too) and being eliminated in 11th, as Colapinto was.
The Audis of Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto were 12th and 14th with the faster Haas of Ollie Bearman between them.
Fernando Alonso was 15th in the Aston Martin Honda, with a big error at Turn 16 leaving Esteban Ocon’s Haas as the slowest driver in SQ2.
Arvid Lindblad was knocked out in the first part of qualifying for only the second time in his F1 career. He was eliminated in 17th, almost three tenths slower than Racing Bulls team-mate Lawson in SQ1.
Lance Stroll was over seven tenths slower than his Aston Martin team-mate Alonso in SQ1, so he was knocked out in 18th.
Williams’s worst 2026 qualifying
Williams suffered its worst qualifying session of the season, with Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz 19th and 22nd.
Albon was the faster Williams driver but still over six tenths away from making it into SQ2, telling his team over the radio: "I thought we had another lap. I didn't know it was just one lap."
He also complained of a "completely different car to practice", while Sainz said he had "a lot of front locking and no rear, combined" as he lapped slower than both Cadillacs.
SQ1 was red-flagged halfway through when Sergio Perez nosed his Cadillac into the wall at the Turn 5 right-hander, breaking his front wing and depositing debris on his way back to the pits.
Perez had promised to take some risks this weekend, given it’s "probably our last good chance to try and get a good result [so] we need to be able to over-deliver massively to get something back" this weekend.
Perez did rejoin the session and ended up qualifying 20th, a tenth ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas.
As well as the red flag, there were also timing issues and a potential new software glitch that left some drivers down on power in SQ1 and caused a delay to the start of SQ2.
