Verstappen beats Ferraris to Singapore pole

Red Bull's Max Verstappen beats the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton to pole position in qualifying at the Singapore Grand Prix. Red Bull's Max Verstappen took his second pole position in a week by beating the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton in qualifying at the Singapore Grand Prix. Verstappen's first lap in final qualifying was enough to take pole, his time fending off a second lap from Leclerc that was 0.054 seconds off pole. Hamilton was closest to Verstappen after the first runs but was unable to improve on his second run. In fact, most of the front runners struggled to improve on their second runs, as Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli took fourth on the grid, from Mc Laren's Lando Norris. Antonelli's team-mate George Russell was sixth fastest but will drop to the back of the grid with a penalty for using too many engine parts. Mc Laren's Oscar Piastri was the only driver in the top four teams other than Leclerc to improve on his second run but could do no better than qualify seventh. Alpine's Pierre Gasly and the Racing Bulls of Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad completed the top 10. Verstappen building major momentum as 'no-one very happy' at Mc Laren Verstappen came to Singapore fresh from his and Red Bull's first victory of the season at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia and he has continued where he left off. The four-time champion has looked the man to beat all weekend, and took pole for the grand prix a few hours after winning the sprint, following Russell crashing out of the lead. Verstappen said: "This was the one I really wanted. The car has been really strong all weekend.

"We have been on a really on a positive trend and it's really special to take the pole here." Leclerc felt pole had been on the cards if he had not made a few small mistakes on his final lap. He said: "Q1 and Q2 were really difficult. I had some weird struggles under braking. Q3, the lap was OK. I did some mistakes. I think there was a potential to be on pole today but Max just did a better job." Hamilton, second to Verstappen in the sprint, was quickest in the first and second parts of qualifying but could not repeat that pace when it mattered during what he described as "another difficult Q3". He added: "The car was feeling much better. I really felt she had more in her, pushing her through the laps and sessions. Q1 and Q2 were awesome, but got to Q3, snaps through (Turns) One and Three (on the first lap) put me down and rest of the lap was good, and then the second lap too many snaps. "I think there's a really fine line with our car whether you are over or under the sweet spot and I didn't get it quite right today." Hamilton said he had adjusted brake balance on his car for the final part of qualifying and he thought it had "just tipped it a little over the edge". Live commentary on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra; live text updates on BBC Sport website and app Antonelli's fourth place was the first relatively bright moment for the Mercedes upgrade that was introduced in Malaysia but about which the team have question marks. Although it shows in the data to have more downforce than the previous specification, which Russell is running this weekend, it has proved difficult to access that.

In that context, for Antonelli to be only 0.189secs from pole could appear to be a promising step forward after being only seventh in sprint qualifying on Friday, even if the upgrade was still expected to deliver more performance than so far has been the case. Russell, who crashed out of the sprint at the end of the first lap, said he had competed in qualifying "mainly just to make sure the car was feeling as it did yesterday after the crash but it didn't quite feel the same". He added: "I had great pace yesterday. We were in the top three every lap I completed. And today I wasn't in the top five at any point throughout the session so we need to understand why that is." Mc Laren had hoped for a step forward this weekend after struggling in the past two races but fifth and seventh marked only a small amount of progress for the world champions, despite flashes of promise through the weekend. Norris said: "In the end we're where we should be. Nothing has changed so no reason why we would suddenly be on the pace. I could put good bits together, but the car is just too much of a challenge, I have to feel like I am almost crashing to put in a purple sector but you just can't do that, the tyres don't survive, the car is too difficult to be in that perfect limit when it's quick." Norris addressed the incident with Piastri on the final lap of the sprint race, when an attack by the Briton into Turn Five led to them colliding, and turning what had been fourth and fifth places into an eighth for Norris and retirement for Piastri. Norris said: "There are two sides. One is what the stewards say and that's a fair reasoning, no-one's to blame. "But I did apologise because it was still me attacking, as I had the right to do. If I just sat there and was boring like I should be, nothing would have happened.

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