The 2025 Formula 1 season featured yet another twist in qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix, as Mercedes and George Russell outshone the title contenders to take pole position.
Here's our picks for the biggest winners and losers from Saturday in Singapore:
Loser - Lando Norris (5th)
Lando Norris was already glum on Friday night in Singapore, as he felt he had not done a very good job in practice. It didn’t really get any better in qualifying, in which Norris said he was "missing" his driving.
The runaway 2024 Singapore winner was never really in the pole fight this time, slipping further away through each segment. He even claimed the pole time was "just out of our league" in Singapore.
Norris reckons Singapore has exposed the 2025 McLaren's main weakness with the front axle, which has led to understeer - "my worst nightmare".
And to make matters worse, team-mate and championship rival Oscar Piastri chipped away at his deficit (as he so often does) to nip ahead when it counted in Q3. So not only is McLaren behind the cars it seemed to be simply slower than, Norris also been jumped by the driver he needs to beat most. - Scott Mitchell-Malm
Winner - Nico Hulkenberg (11th)
This weekend started with Nico Hulkenberg admitting qualifying has been difficult this year and he’s lacked confidence in the Sauber over one lap.
Perfect timing, then, to outpace Gabriel Bortoleto, come within a tenth of a first Q3 appearance of the season, and equal his best qualifying result of the year in the process.
Bortoleto’s Q1 exit was partly down to circumstance as he didn’t seem to judge the time loss to a single-waved yellow in the middle sector as well as Hulkenberg, and there was hardly anything between the two on pace.
But Hulkenberg was relieved to be the one to have a clean qualifying for a change. - SMM
Loser - Yuki Tsunoda (13th)
A good (but not yet proven 100% legal) final lap hauled Tsunoda into Q2 when an early exit seemed possible.
But being slowest of all in Q2, eight tenths adrift of Max Verstappen (an older spec front wing doesn't explain all of that), was a big disappointment and a return to the kind of head-scratching qualifying form that has been the norm for much of his Red Bull spell.
Tsunoda said he "lacked grip throughout" qualifying with tyres that were "behaving differently" than expected. He's "really struggling to understand" why that is.
So even if Tsunoda escapes punishment when he’s investigated for a potential yellow flag infringement in Q1, he will still have his work cut out to get into the points. - SMM
Winner - Red Bull’s recent car development
The fact that Max Verstappen has been fast from the get-go in Singapore, and finished qualifying almost two tenths clear of the nearest McLaren, bodes well for Red Bull’s recent car development and set-up direction.
There was always a question mark about whether this car could translate its recent low-downforce, slow-corner performance gains to a high-downforce circuit, and Verstappen’s performance in Singapore suggests the Red Bull recovery is real.
Verstappen himself didn’t feel like a winner after missing out on pole to Russell’s Mercedes and complaining of Lando Norris getting in the way at a crucial moment in Max’s final Q3 lap, but looking at the bigger picture this is another major step forward for Verstappen and Red Bull. Even if Tsunoda isn't quite up to the same spec yet - Ben Anderson
Loser - Williams (Double DSQ)
Singapore qualifying proved to be quite the comedown for Williams after Baku produced its first podium in four years.
Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz both struggled, initially qualifying 12th and 13th which turned into a double disqualification from qualifying for a rear wing infringement.
That pitlane start will at least allow for a set-up reset that sounds like it's needed on both cars.
The drivers complained of a lack of grip, with Sainz believing he’d made some grip-sapping set-up choices. Albon qualified ahead, but he feels he’s been on the back foot all weekend.
Williams will be glad that it has a 29-point advantage in the fight for fifth in the constructors’ championship, but right now it looks like that should take a dent on Sunday. - Josh Suttill
Winner - Mercedes (1st and 4th)
George Russell taking pole position one day after he’d smashed his Mercedes up is an impressive turnaround - especially on a "quite strange" weekend.
"The grip has been really high from the tarmac, but the cars have been sliding quite a lot," Russell explained.
"It feels a bit reminiscent of Miami, where it's really high grip, but the car is sliding and I just didn't have much confidence in myself and obviously the crash yesterday set me back again."
Rookie team-mate Kimi Antonelli was disappointed to only be fourth, but this was a very good day for Antonelli, who at one stage even looked a threat for the front row.
Mercedes is frozen out of the title battles, but it will have an important disruptor role to play in them tomorrow. - JS
Loser - Lance Stroll (15th)
Lance Stroll suffered his seventh Q1 exit in the last nine races, qualifying seven places behind Aston Martin team-mate Fernando Alonso in Singapore.
He was 0.204s slower than Alonso in Q1 - better than his average 2025 deficit - but struggled with a car that felt like a “lottery” all weekend.
“I don’t feel the harmony in the car, haven’t felt it for a long time,” Stroll said.
“So another one of those weekends where just putting laps together feels difficult.”
The double Williams DSQ at least means Stroll’s already climbed to 15th on the grid, but points will still be tricky from there, given Stroll’s lack of confidence behind the wheel this weekend. - JS
Winner - Ollie Bearman (9th)
Ollie Bearman made his first Q3 appearance since the British Grand Prix in July on his way to ninth on the grid in Singapore.
A lot of Haas’s frustrations this season can be traced to Bearman being really quick but it not coming together when it mattered.
That Silverstone top 10, for example, was undermined by Bearman foolishly earning a grid penalty for crashing under red flag conditions in practice.
This was a much smoother Saturday, though, at least for Bearman. For Esteban Ocon, his first run in Q1 was compromised by belts coming loose, then his second he slowed too much for yellow flags - so he was among the early exits in the opening segment. - SMM
Loser - Charles Leclerc (7th)
Leclerc is usually a street circuit specialist, and describes Singapore as one of his favourite tracks on the F1 calendar, but things are not clicking for Ferrari’s qualifying ace at the moment.
He says he’s been “really, really struggling to find the grip” from the track since FP2 on Friday, describing his car as having “lots of understeer but still snappy and unpredictable”.
The last part of his final Q3 lap looked ragged as he tried to hustle a time from it, almost crashing through the final corner as the car bucked underneath him. That level of oversteer would suggest chasing more front end from the set-up wasn’t really working for him.
Team boss Fred Vasseur felt Leclerc’s lap was decent until that final sector, while Lewis Hamilton referenced Ferrari’s tactics for leaving the pits were costing them up to half a second simply from the tyres being below temperature for those critical Q3 runs.
Regardless, Leclerc says he’s not felt at one with the car these past two events, so there is work to do to unpick where he’s gone wrong.
A Q3 crash in Baku followed by a limp seventh place in Singapore is not what we’ve come to expect from one of F1’s best qualifiers. - BA
Loser - Liam Lawson (12th)
While Isack Hadjar claimed eighth on the grid, Liam Lawson ended Q2 as the second slowest car, compromised by two crashes in practice.
It's a shame, given it comes off the back of Lawson's standout Baku weekend.
The double Williams DSQ at least puts Lawson on the fringes of the points, and given the pace Hadjar has shown, he really should be finishing in them on Sunday. - SMM
