Norris takes pole over Verstappen, Sainz crashes in qualifying

Lando Norris claimed pole over Max Verstappen for the Singapore Grand Prix in an interrupted Q3, as last year’s winner Carlos Sainz crashed out during the top 10 shootout.

Sainz lost control of his Ferrari on the exit of Turn 17 while spooling his car up for a hot lap, ultimately backing his car into the wall to bring out a red flag.

Verstappen set a 1m29.791s to go top but did so under double-waved yellows in the immediate aftermath of Sainz’s crash, and thus this was deleted. The incident also cost Norris a chance to go top, as his brace of purple sectors was ultimately squandered by the stoppage.

When the session resumed 15 minutes later, none of those without a lap opted to do a quick tour on used tyres and instead waited for the final crescendo with a new set of softs.

Oscar Piastri, who was nominally on provisional pole, set a 1m29.953s benchmark – but Norris swiftly beat this with a 1m29.525s. Verstappen got closest, setting a 1m29.728s lap to get onto the front row.

Both Mercedes booked the second row ahead of Piastri, as Lewis Hamilton got third by 0.026s over George Russell as the Brackley squad appeared more competitive on Saturday.

Ferrari endured a miserable session as Charles Leclerc’s lap was deleted – although it was only good enough for seventh as Nico Hulkenberg’s fastest lap was four-thousandths of a second faster.

Thus, Leclerc and Sainz start from ninth and 10th, behind Fernando Alonso and Yuki Tsunoda on row four.

Alex Albon was just 0.024s shy of making it into Q3, having been bumped out by Fernando Alonso at the very close of the session. The Williams driver could be heard admonishing his team for lack of communication with tyre preparation ahead of his first lap; although he improved next time out, it was ultimately not enough.

Franco Colapinto was in the relegation zone ahead of the final Q1 runs, but the Argentine fired his Williams to the ninth-fastest time in that session. But he too fell on the wrong side of the cut-off in Q2, just 0.007s behind his team-mate.

Sergio Perez was a considerable scalp in Q2, qualifying only 13th with a lap 0.9s short of his team-mate Verstappen in that session. This put him ahead of the returning Kevin Magnussen and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon.

Daniel Ricciardo was shuffled into the drop zone at the end of Q1 by Ocon, having peaked with 12th…