Verstappen takes sprint pole

Red Bull's Max Verstappen beat Mercedes driver George Russell to sprint pole at the Singapore Grand Prix. Verstappen was zero point one two seconds quicker than Russell, with Ferrari's Charles Leclerc third.

Verstappen's momentum from Malaysia

Verstappen was fresh from his and Red Bull's first victory of the season in Malaysia last weekend. His pole lap appeared to be further confirmation of Red Bull's resurgence after that dominant win.

Antonelli slips down the order

Championship leader Kimi Antonelli, using the Mercedes upgrade that underperformed in Malaysia while Russell is on the previous specification, could manage only seventh, zero point six nine three seconds behind Verstappen.

FIA software glitch strikes again

There were further glitches with the engine settings provided by the FIA five days after the formation laps in the wet in Malaysia saw cars reduced to crawling speed as a result of a software…

Overtake mode switched on and off

The settings issue in Singapore involved overtake mode, which allows an extra zero point five megajoules of energy to be harvested, being switched on and off again in the space of twenty eight seconds after…

Sainz hits out at unfair advantage

Williams driver Carlos Sainz was knocked out in the first session and complained that half the cars did the lap with half a second quicker engine than the others.

“There was another software issue and we were on the bad end of it, and for whatever reason, the FIA, like in Malaysia, again didn't decide to do sporting equity and were happy to do half of the quali with cars with higher power than the other half of the cars.”

FIA admits human error

The FIA said in a statement that during the first period of sprint qualifying there was a human error in race control.

“The FIA acknowledges that this unfortunate human error had an impact on the performance of certain cars based on the timing of their run and their position around the lap.”

Mercedes upgrade proving problematic

Russell's performance compared with Antonelli's raises further doubts about the efficacy of the Mercedes upgrade introduced in Malaysia.

Russell cautious on upgrade

George Russell said as a team there is still nothing telling them the upgrade isn't working but the stopwatch hasn't been great for it yet. He said maybe tomorrow would be a different day.

“As a team there is still nothing telling us it isn't working but it's all driven by the stopwatch and, yeah, the stopwatch hasn't been great for the upgrade yet.”

Antonelli struggles with new package

Championship leader Kimi Antonelli, who leads by eighty four points, said the car is very difficult and very unpredictable.

“Really the car is very difficult, very unpredictable, very difficult to put a lap together. It's a shame. I was coming with high hopes but so far it has been very difficult.”

Leclerc sees potential despite struggles

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc was zero point two four three seconds off pole and said Ferrari was losing a little bit of raw performance in the past three or four races.

Main qualifying still to come

The sprint pole session is complete but the main qualifying session for the Singapore Grand Prix takes place on October tenth.

“Qualifying tomorrow is still the main goal and for us the start is always a critical point but at least a positive end to our day.”