Author Archives: PressBox

George Russell crashed out of the Singapore Sprint after briefly leading from second on the grid, and he took full responsibility for the mistake, saying overconfidence played a part. Russell said his wheel touched the white line in the wet before his Mercedes hit the wall, and it was his first crash of the year.

Mercedes then had to repair Russell’s car before qualifying, and Russell said the repaired machine did not feel the same, with balance and competitiveness problems compared with earlier in the day. The team had split its aerodynamic packages on Friday, with Russell in the older-spec car and Kimi Antonelli on the upgraded version, and Russell said Mercedes had been competitive all day but the stopwatch had not yet shown the upgrade package to be an improvement. Toto Wolff said the floor may not have been restored properly and that Mercedes still needed to investigate.

Russell qualified sixth for the Singapore Grand Prix, but he said he needed to understand why his pace dropped so sharply from Friday. He said Sunday’s race would be very challenging because he was set to start from the back of the grid under an engine-related penalty, although he hoped to fight back into the points, potentially around seventh or sixth depending on Isack Hadjar’s situation.

Max Verstappen capped a strong Singapore weekend by winning the Sprint and then taking pole position for the Singapore Grand Prix at Marina Bay, beating Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in both sessions. Verstappen’s pole, set with a lap of 1m31.373s, was his first in Singapore at the 10th attempt and the 50th Formula 1 pole of his career.

Leclerc qualified second, 0.054 seconds behind Verstappen, while Lewis Hamilton was third after leading Q1 and Q2. Kimi Antonelli qualified fourth and Lando Norris was fifth, but George Russell will start from the back after an engine penalty. Oscar Piastri qualified seventh, and Isack Hadjar failed to set a timed lap in Q1 and will also start from the back.

Verstappen also won the Singapore Sprint, with Hamilton finishing second 2.5 seconds behind him and Leclerc taking third. Hamilton said his wet-weather “mega start” was the key to finishing runner-up, while Leclerc held off Piastri and Norris for the final podium place before the McLaren drivers collided on the last lap.

Isack Hadjar said he was “really frustrated” after a gearbox failure ended his Singapore Grand Prix qualifying before he could set a representative lap, leaving him unclassified and set to start Sunday’s race from the back of the grid. He said the car felt good in Sector 1 before the gearbox broke at Turn 8, and that he could not get the gears down before limping the car back to the garage. Hadjar also criticized the FIA for calling him to the weighbridge while he was still trying to bring the car back.

The qualifying problem capped a difficult weekend for the Red Bull driver, who also retired from the Sprint after three laps because of an engine problem. Red Bull switched him to a previous power unit before qualifying, and Laurent Mekies apologized, saying the Sprint power unit issue and the gearbox failure in qualifying denied Hadjar a chance to show his pace. Hadjar said the repeated mechanical problems were “bad momentum,” and noted his weekend had already been affected by a battery-related setback in Malaysia.

Hadjar had finished ninth in Sprint Qualifying after a lap was deleted for exceeding track limits. He said he was fighting the car throughout Sprint Qualifying, had engine issues on his final run, felt comfortable early in FP1 on the hard tire, then found the car did not feel driveable at Marina Bay once his pace dropped on the medium and soft tires. He said he never managed to put together a good lap.