Verstappen takes pole after a stewards review

Max Verstappen will start the sprint race from pole at Marina Bay, the 17th round of the season, after winning at Sepang the previous Sunday for his first win of the year. His best lap was given as 1:31.156 in one ANSA report and 1:31.153 in another, and George Russell finished a little over a tenth behind on his final attempt. Russell's lap pushed Charles Leclerc from second to third, with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris behind him. Lewis Hamilton qualified sixth and Kimi Antonelli seventh, while Carlos Sainz will start last.

Verstappen said after qualifying:

Here you always push to the limit, grazing the walls, and so I am very happy with pole.

Stewards clear the pole

Verstappen was called before the stewards for overtaking Hamilton under yellow flags in Q1, and the grid was only made official around midnight local time. The FIA's written decision says the Red Bull driver lifted off and reduced speed as soon as he saw the flag, a point telemetry confirmed. Hamilton had been slowing and was in his braking phase, which the stewards judged meant avoiding the pass would have required exceptionally hard braking from Verstappen. Hamilton had noticed the move over the radio but did not insist on a penalty when he spoke with the stewards. No sanction was imposed, so Verstappen keeps the pole.

A timing fault and a missed power boost

The session was already disrupted before the pass was reviewed. Sergio Pérez crashed at turn five in SQ1, losing his front wing and leaving Cadillac debris on the racing line, which brought out yellow flags and then a red flag. A fault in the timing system delayed the start of SQ2 by 20 minutes. The FIA also acknowledged an 'unfortunate human error' by race control: Overtake Mode, the electric boost worth 0.5 MJ, stayed off after the red flag, was activated for only 27 seconds and was then switched off again. Had Verstappen received a three-place penalty, Russell would have started first with Leclerc on the front row.

Sainz and the power question

Sainz, who starts last, criticised the FIA for not repeating the qualifying session despite the software problem. In comments to DAZN after the session he said:

For some reason, the FIA, as in Malaysia, has decided not to apply a criterion of sporting fairness and has accepted that half the cars had more power than the other half in qualifying.

He also reported brake problems in Free Practice 1 that persisted into SQ1, locking his brakes several times, and tyre difficulties on a lap he called very bad. He completed that lap with half a second less power than on any other lap of the weekend.

Ferrari and Mercedes struggle

Leclerc said his best lap extracted all the potential Ferrari had that day and that third was a good place to start on a track where overtaking will be difficult. He also said Ferrari had lost some pure performance over the past three or four races. Hamilton struggled for rear grip on the soft tyres and said the team still had to establish whether the cause was tyre preparation, balance or overheating. Team principal Fred Vasseur said Ferrari had gone better on the medium tyres and would work on that compound for qualifying.

Antonelli is running the new Mercedes package, while Russell has returned to the car specification used before the Sepang upgrades. Mercedes removed Antonelli's new front wing, but a full return to the earlier configuration needs at least two days of work. Vice team principal Bradley Lord said Antonelli's car is less stable and less consistent in balance than Russell's, with understeer in slow corners and nervousness through fast entries. Antonelli said:

There is still a lot to understand about this package, the car is unpredictable and it is difficult to put a lap together.

He finished 0.573 seconds behind Russell and said he could not see where the roughly seven tenths he needed would come from. He still leads Russell by 84 points in the championship.

What comes next

The sprint race is scheduled for 10 October and is the last of six sprints this season. Vasseur said the sprint will give Ferrari useful information before the team turns its full attention back to the main qualifying session.