© Getty ImagesMax narrowly misses out on poleMax will start the Singapore Grand Prix from the front row of the grid after narrowly missing out on pole when he was forced to back out of his final flyer by a slow Lando Norris ahead.
MaxwillstarttheSingaporeGrandPrixfromthefrontrowofthegridafternarrowlymissingoutonpolewhenhewasforcedtobackoutofhisfinalflyerbyaslowLandoNorrisahead.ThatleftMercedes’GeorgeRussellonpoleandMaxwithhis82nd careerfrontrowspot.Yuki,meanwhile,willstarttheraceattheMarinaBayStreetCircuitfromP15.
Max was in contention for pole right up to the final chicane of his final flying lap. But as he went into Turn 16 he was unsettled by Lando ahead and as Max headed towards the final corner he backed out of his lap.
Max with his 82nd career front row spot© Getty Images
"The lap itself was coming nicely, but around here to nail all the corners is very tough. Unfortunately, I had a car two seconds in front of me in the final chicane. In qualifying, you cannot have that. You cannot have any kind of disturbance when you want to push in Q3, and that's what happened. I had to abort the lap. So that was a bit unfortunate. Otherwise, I think it would have been a very close battle for first, but it is what it is."
A trailer for the closeness of the qualifying competition was shown in a final practice session topped by Max, in which the top five were covered by just nine hundredths of a second.
After the first three quarters of the session, largely conducted on Medium tyres, Max was one of the first to head out for a qualifying simulation as the final 15-minute rush got underway.
And after solidly establishing himself in the top five with two earlier Medium tyre flyers, the Dutchman used the C5 Soft to vault to the top of the timesheet thanks to a lap of 1:30.148.
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri’s first run on Softs was nothing special but the championship-leading Aussie found pace with a last-gasp final flyer that lifted him to P2, just 0.017s behind Max.
George was a couple of hundredths further back and Kimi Antonelli in the other Mercedes and Lando in the other McLaren set identical lap times of 1:30.237 to take P4 and P5 respectively.
It was a more challenging session for Yuki, who ended the session in P18.
Max was straight back into the groove at the start of Qualifying and the Dutchman took P1 with an opening flyer of 1:30.317. Yuki, meanwhile, opened with a lap of 1:31.745 putting him into P11. As better times flooded in, he dropped to P16.
The track was ramping up, however, and with a little under seven minutes remaining, VCARB’s Isack Hadjar jumped to P1 ahead of Max and a minute later Lando became the first man below the 1m30s mark and took P1 with a lap of 1:29.932.
The final runs were in sight and Lewis Hamilton was the first to lay down a marker with a lap of 1:29.765. Max was next across the line and his 1:30.028 initially took him to P3. That became P4 as George edged 0.004s ahead of Lando to take P2.
Further back, Yuki embarked on his final flyer and his lap was strong enough to jump him to P10 and safety.
There was no place in Q2 for Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto who dropped out in P16 ahead of Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll, Alpine pair Franco Colapinto and Pierre Gasly and Haas’ Esteban Ocon.
Max was first out on track at the start of Q2 and he set the first benchmark, at 1:29.747. Yuki’s opener of 1:30.353 lifted him into the top 10 and as a clutch of drivers including George, Lewis, Kimi and Haas’ Ollie Bearman had their laps deleted, it looked like the Japanese driver might hold on. Some of the deleted drivers went again and as better times flowed in Yuki dropped to P12, behind Liam and ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, Williams’ Alex Albon and Kimi. At the top of the order after the first runs, Max kept P1 ahead of Oscar.
Despite his opener looking safe, Max headed out on a new set of softs for the final runs and as Kimi jumped from P15 to P1 the reason became clear. George beat his team-mate to claim P1 on a time of 1:29.562 and Max crossed the line one hundredth off that to split the Mercedes pair, with Lando fourth ahead of team-mate Oscar.
Further back, there was no way out of the drop zone for Yuki and after failing to improve on his opening time, he slid out of qualifying in P15. Also ruled out at the end of Q2 were Sauber’s Nico Hülkenberg in P11, the Williams duo of Carlos Sainz and Alex in 12th and 13th respectively and Liam in P14.
At the start of Q3, George was the first of the pole contenders across the line and the Mercedes driver, who brushed the barriers in the final corners, laid down a strong marker with a lap of 1:29.165.
Kimi slotted into second ahead of Lewis and when Lando couldn’t go quicker than the Italian and Oscar could only make it to P2, it was left to Max, last out on track to take the fight to Mercedes. The Dutchman’s time was boosted by a purple final sector, but despite the pace he could only take P2.
It set up the possibility of a supremely tight battle for pole and when George managed to shave 0.007s off his first run time the tension ramped up even more. McLaren were soon out of the picture, with neither Lando nor Oscar challenging, and Kimi also disappeared from contention.
It was only Max who stood a chance of beating George and through the first two sectors the Dutchman was right in contention. In the final sector, however, Max came across Lando who was two seconds ahead and on his in-lap. The McLaren was off-line but Max felt slowed by Lando’s presence and as he went towards the final pair of corners he backed out of his lap and settled from the front row.
Behind the top two, Oscar took third ahead of Kimi, while Lando qualified fifth. Lewis was sixth ahead of team-mate Charles and Isack, with Ollie in P9 ahead of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.
