Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has snatched pole position for the 2026 Singapore Sprint after he topped sprint qualifying.
Verstappen recovered from finishing sixth in practice to top two of the three sprint qualifying segments to claim his first sprint pole of the season in the last sprint weekend format of the campaign.
Practice
Alpine’s Franco Colapinto was first out on track and set an initial 1m 41.011 as the benchmark time on the hard tyre, which his teammate – Pierre Gasly lowered to 1m 39.885.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen proceeded to top the first set of flying laps with 1m 35.641 in the seventh minute as everyone ran the hard tyre except for Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez.
Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Lando Norris subsequently traded fastest laps across a ten-minute spell, until Antonelli set a 1m 33.830 in the 24th minute to go fastest ahead of race simulations in their only practice session of the weekend.
The final ten minutes of the session saw attention switch to qualifying simulations with a mixture of soft and medium-tyre running, as Russell lowered the benchmark on soft tyres to 1m 32.864 ahead of Oscar Piastri by 0.034 seconds.
Lewis Hamilton in the 53rd minute laid 1m 32.821 as the soft-tyre benchmark until Russell found a further 0.547s to top the session with 1m 32.274, ahead of Leclerc, Norris, Hamilton and Piastri as the top five plus Cadillac’s Perez and Bottas ran the soft tyre.
Everyone else set their quickest lap times on the medium tyre aside from Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg who suffered a gearbox issue around 20 minutes from the checkered flag, which meant that he missed the qualifying simulations after his hard-tyre opening stint.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1 | George Russell | Mercedes | 1m 32.274 |
| 2 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | + 0.198 |
| 3 | Lando Norris | McLaren | + 0.273 |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | + 0.499 |
| 5 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren | + 0.564 |
| 6 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | + 0.732 |
| 7 | Andrea Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | + 1.251 |
| 8 | Isack Hadjar | Red Bull | + 1.449 |
| 9 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine | + 1.764 |
| 10 | Liam Lawson | Racing Bulls | + 1.881 |
| 11 | Oliver Bearman | Haas | + 2.057 |
| 12 | Arvid Lindblad | Racing Bulls | + 2.202 |
| 13 | Esteban Ocon | Haas | + 2.207 |
| 14 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin | + 2.221 |
| 15 | Carlos Sainz | Williams | + 2.377 |
| 16 | Gabriel Bortoleto | Audi | + 2.462 |
| 17 | Alex Albon | Williams | + 2.531 |
| 18 | Nico Hulkenberg | Audi | + 2.610 |
| 19 | Franco Colapinto | Alpine | + 2.709 |
| 20 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | + 2.994 |
| 21 | Sergio Perez | Cadillac | + 3.025 |
| 22 | Valtteri Bottas | Cadillac | + 3.346 |
Sprint Qualifying
SQ1
Perez was the first driver to hit the circuit and laid 1m 49.342 as the initial benchmark time but Hamilton soon lowered the pace to 1m 33.748 in the fifth minute, just moments after Perez hit the barriers at turn five and left debris across the track from his damaged front wing.
Stewards consequently threw a red flag with six minutes and nine seconds left on the clock at time of pause, whilst only five drivers set a representative lap time prior to the stoppage; Hamilton, Gasly, Alonso, Colapinto and Stroll.
Verstappen meanwhile was put under investigation by stewards post-session after he overtook Hamilton during the yellow flag zone, in the wake of Perez’s incident.
The session resumed 11 minutes later as Bottas and Perez led everyone else back out onto the circuit.
At the checkered flag, Stroll initially qualified 17th in front of Bortoleto, Albon, Bottas, Sainz and Perez, but officials soon found an issue with the timing system and Bortoleto actually advanced in 11th position, whilst Perez actually qualified 20th in front of Bottas and Sainz.
Lindblad consequently was confirmed as the last Q1 exit in 17th position ahead of Stroll, Albon, Perez, Bottas and Sainz, with the Brit having missed out on SQ2 by just 0.088s to Colapinto.
Verstappen meanwhile topped the first segment with 1m 33.477 from Leclerc by 0.018s.
SQ2
The second part of sprint qualifying was delayed 13 minutes due to technical glitches affecting the timing and power deployment systems but once it got underway, Verstappen was first on track and laid 1m 32.724 as the initial benchmark time.
Once everyone set their first lap times, Hadjar, Bortoleto, Alonso, Colapinto, Ocon and Bearman found themselves in the elimination zone, whilst Leclerc sat fastest with 1m 32.457 ahead of Hamilton and Norris as the top three were covered by 0.115s.
As the checkered flag fell, Colapinto missed out on SQ3 by 0.094s to his Alpine teammate – Gasly, which meant that the Argentinean started 11th ahead of Hulkenberg, Bearman, Bortoleto, Alonso and Ocon.
Leclerc topped the segment with 1m 32.246 from Hamilton and Norris.
SQ3
With the top ten switched to the soft tyres for the final segment, Norris ventured straight out and laid 1m 31.587 as the immediate benchmark time from his teammate, Piastri who went 0.189s shy.
Leclerc however found a further 0.019s on the reigning champion to put himself fastest on 1m 31.568, which he soon lowered to 1m 31.399 in the final minute, just moments before Verstappen delivered 1m 31.156 to snatch pole for the sprint which marked his first pole in Singapore.
Russell at the checkered flag snatched second to split Verstappen and Leclerc, whilst Piastri outqualified Norris in fourth and fifth respectively.
Hamilton, Antonelli and Lawson rounded out the top eight whilst Hadjar and Gasly completed the top ten despite their times having been deleted due to breaches of track limits.
The sprint will be held on Saturday 10 October at 5pm SGT (10am BST).
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 1m 31.156 |
| 2 | George Russell | Mercedes | + 0.120 |
| 3 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | + 0.243 |
| 4 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren | + 0.298 |
| 5 | Lando Norris | McLaren | + 0.431 |
| 6 | Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | + 0.546 |
| 7 | Andrea Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | + 0.693 |
| 8 | Liam Lawson | Red Bull | + 1.185 |
| 9 | Isack Hadjar | Racing Bulls | No Time |
| 10 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine | No Time |
| 11 | Franco Colapinto | Alpine | 1m 33.249 |
| 12 | Nico Hulkenberg | Audi | + 0.171 |
| 13 | Oliver Bearman | Haas | + 0.174 |
| 14 | Gabriel Bortoleto | Audi | + 0.217 |
| 15 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin | + 0.485 |
| 16 | Esteban Ocon | Haas | + 1.119 |
| 17 | Arvid Lindblad | Racing Bulls | 1m 35.136 |
| 18 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | + 0.526 |
| 19 | Alex Albon | Williams | + 0.994 |
| 20 | Sergio Perez | Cadillac | + 1.624 |
| 21 | Valtteri Bottas | Cadillac | + 1.732 |
| 22 | Carlos Sainz | Williams | + 2.240 |
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