Max Verstappen took sprint pole for the 2026 Singapore Grand Prix on Friday night at Marina Bay Street Circuit, beating George Russell by 0.120 seconds with a single flying lap in SQ3. The Red Bull driver stopped the clock at 1:31.156 under the lights, and the stewards left the result standing after an investigation into a yellow-flag incident earlier in the session. It is the first sprint ever held in Singapore.
Verstappen waited in the garage until just over three minutes remained in SQ3 before going out on soft tyres. He got one lap, and one lap was enough. He was quickest through sector 1 at 26.832 and quickest again through sector 3 at 25.675, with Charles Leclerc owning the middle sector at 38.445. Verstappen also topped the speed trap at 189.6 mph, with Russell at 189.0 mph.
Russell was the last car over the line and faster than Verstappen through the middle of the lap, but he could not find the time anywhere else. He starts the 21-lap sprint from P2 on Saturday.
The Sprint Qualifying Result In Full
- Max Verstappen (Red Bull) — 1:31.156
- George Russell (Mercedes) — 1:31.276 (+0.120)
- Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) — 1:31.399 (+0.243)
- Oscar Piastri (McLaren) — 1:31.454 (+0.298)
- Lando Norris (McLaren) — 1:31.587 (+0.431)
- Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) — 1:31.702 (+0.546)
- Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) — 1:31.849 (+0.693)
- Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) — 1:32.341 (+1.185)
- Isack Hadjar (Red Bull) — no valid SQ3 time
- Pierre Gasly (Alpine) — no valid SQ3 time
Hadjar and Gasly both had their SQ3 laps deleted for track limits, Hadjar at the final corner. Behind the top ten, Franco Colapinto lines up P11, Nico Hulkenberg P12, Oliver Bearman P13, Gabriel Bortoleto P14, Fernando Alonso P15 and Esteban Ocon P16. Arvid Lindblad, Lance Stroll, Alexander Albon, Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas went out in SQ1, with Carlos Sainz last.
How Verstappen Built The Lap
The field had only one hour of free practice before sprint qualifying, and Russell topped that session. SQ1 ran on mandatory medium tyres, and it was interrupted when Perez put his car into the barrier at Turn 4, broke the front wing and brought out a red flag with roughly six minutes left on the clock.
Verstappen came out of that first segment fastest anyway, a 1:33.477 that put him 0.096 seconds clear of Russell. The gap to Russell was 0.096s after SQ1 and 0.120s when the session ended.
Why The Stewards Investigated Verstappen
The debris from Perez’s crash brought out single yellow flags, and Verstappen passed Lewis Hamilton while they were showing. The stewards looked at it after the session and confirmed a breach of Appendix H, Article 2.5.5b in FIA document 29, but issued no penalty.
Their reasoning was the closing speed between the two cars on a push lap, which made the pass an unfortunate consequence rather than a deliberate one, and the stewards noted that braking heavily to avoid it could itself have been unsafe. Sky Sports and the FIA decision both confirm the pole stands.
What It Means For The Championship
This is Verstappen’s first sprint pole of the 2026 season and the eleventh of his career. He had never taken pole in Singapore before, and he has never won here either. He arrives off the back of victory in Malaysia last weekend, his first win of 2026.
Russell is doing this in the older-specification Mercedes. Championship leader Kimi Antonelli is in the upgraded package, and he qualified seventh, 0.693 seconds off pole. Antonelli leads Russell by 84 points in the standings.
Russell’s power-unit change does not touch the sprint grid, so he keeps P2 for Saturday’s dash. It catches up with him on Sunday, where four extra elements fitted after his power-unit failure in Malaysia carry a 40-place grid drop for the Grand Prix, ten places for each element beyond his allocation.
The sprint starts at 5pm local time in Singapore on Saturday.
