Leclerc claims Singapore pole after Red Bull tell Verstappen to abandon final lap · RaceFans

Charles Leclerc took pole position for the Singapore Grand Prix after Red Bull told Max Verstappen to abandon what appeared certain to be a pole lap at the chequered flag.

In a session that began in the wet and slowly dried out over the three stages, Leclerc took his ninth pole of the season despite making a mistake on his final lap. Verstappen, who would have been last to finish his lap on the drying track, was told to pit despite being almost a second up on Leclerc through two sectors.

Sergio Perez will start on the front row of the grid in second, with Lewis Hamilton taking his best starting position of the season in third. Verstappen will start down in eighth on the grid after abandoning his final run.

Q1

Following the rain-affected third practice, the circuit was still wet when the first phase of qualifying began. All drivers headed out on intermediate tyres, with the two Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell the first to set any lap times.

Charles Leclerc’s first flying lap was easily quickest of all, seven-tenths of a second faster than the Mercedes. The Ferrari driver then had a trip down the escape road at turn eight, from where he emerged, and Kevin Magnussen emulated his mistake at the same corner shortly afterwards.

Max Verstappen went top of the times with a 1’54.395, but with the track drying, Leclerc soon improved to go even faster by almost two tenths of a second.

With five minutes remaining, the field had committed to staying on intermediate tyres, no one feeling brave enough to risk slicks. By now the drop zone included the two Williams of Alexander Albon and Nicholas Latifi, with Yuki Tsunoda, Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel. Bottas improved to move up to 11th, dropping Pierre Gasly into danger in 16th.

As the chequered flag flew, Tsunoda jumped into the top ten to go safe, while Daniel Ricciardo slipped into the bottom five. Gasly secured his prgression in the other AlphaTauri, which put Esteban Ocon into 16th place. Vettel jumped to 11th to go safe, pushing Mick Schumacher down into 16th.

There were double yellow flags when Fernando Alonso ran off track at turn eight and took a moment to rejoin, the Alpine driver briefly slipping into anti-stall. Ricciardo was unable to improve and was eliminated in 16th.

Schumacher was the last driver to cross the line, making a big improvement and moving safe, dropping Bottas down to 16th and out. “The timing wasn’t great,” rued the Alfa Romeo driver on his radio.

Joining Bottas in…