McLaren’s Lando Norris beat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to pole position Saturday for the Singapore Grand Prix in a dramatic qualifying session red-flagged when Carlos Sainz crashed. Norris’s lap of 1min 30.002sec was 0.155sec quicker than Verstappen. Lewis Hamilton was third ahead of Mercedes teammate George Russell. “It was good enough for pole and I’m happy with that, especially here in Singapore,” said Norris, who is aiming to close a 59-point deficit to Verstappen in the drivers’ championship. “A good feeling. I’ve felt good all weekend, I’ve felt confident, maybe not so much in qualy but we got the job done,” added the Englishman.

But it was a disastrous Q3 for Ferrari pair Charles Leclerc and Sainz, the winner in Singapore 12 months ago, who will start down in ninth and 10th on the grid.

Sainz’s back end snapped out on the final bend sending him spinning into the barriers and halting Q3 with just over eight minutes remaining, leaving most drivers just one shot at a qualifying lap.

Leclerc then had his only lap time deleted for breaching track limits at turn two.

Verstappen had only been 15th fastest in practice on Friday, so the Dutchman was pleased to be alongside his main title rival at the head of the grid.

“I’m happy to be on the front row if you look at where we came from yesterday,” said Verstappen.

“Tomorrow is a bit difficult to say, in Singapore a lot of things can happen, but at least we have a shot at it like this.”

Hamilton had also struggled in practice but managed to put a great lap together when it mattered.

“Qualifying has been a disaster for me all year long and I’ve been working, working and working trying to get myself back up there,” said seven-time world champion Hamilton.

“All of a sudden the car came alive for the first time in qualifying in a long time.

“I hope we’re in a good position to fight for the front tomorrow.”

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was fifth fastest and Nico Hulkenberg of Haas will start alongside him on the third row.

Fernando Alonso was seventh in an Aston Martin, with Yuki Tsunoda eighth in the RB.

Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez failed to make it to the shootout for pole position and will start from 13th on the grid.

Along with Perez, the other drivers who failed to get out of Q2 were the Williams pair of Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto, Kevin Magnussen in a Haas and Esteban Ocon (Alpine).

Daniel Ricciardo — who is rumoured to be driving in F1 for the last time for RB — was in the bottom five who were earlier eliminated in Q1.

Also failing to make it to Q2 were Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin, Pierre Gasly in an Alpine and the Sauber pair of Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu.

McLaren’s Lando Norris went fastest Friday to lead Ferrari pair Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in second practice for the Singapore Grand Prix with world champion Max Verstappen struggling to 15th. The session could not have panned out much better for Englishman Norris, who trails Verstappen by 59 points at the top of the drivers’ standings. The second practice in Singapore is pivotal for the teams as it is the only session which is run under the same night conditions as the race around the 4.94km Marina Bay Circuit.

“I felt like I got a lot out of Friday,” said Norris. “A good start to the weekend and if we can keep it up I’ll be happy.”

Verstappen had 60 minutes to forget and was only 15th fastest in a skittish Red Bull that looked at times like it was on ice.

The Dutch three-time world champion was a massive 1.294 seconds adrift of Norris’s fastest lap of 1min 30.727sec.

“Today was difficult. We didn’t have the grip that we would have liked on the tyres, so I felt like we were sliding a lot more than usual,” admitted Verstappen, who had a bad day off the track too after earlier being reprimanded by stewards for swearing in the drivers’ press conference.

Leclerc, who had been fastest in first practice, clocked 1:30.785, just 0.058sec slower than Norris, but Sainz, who won in Singapore 12 months ago, was almost six tenths behind his teammate.

“There’s still some work ahead of us to get it to feel exactly as I want it to,” said the Monegasque Leclerc.

“We have to find the right balance and put it all together in qualifying tomorrow.”

Yuki Tsunoda in a much-improved RB was fourth ahead of the second McLaren of Oscar Piastri, fresh from his victory in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku last weekend.

The second RB driven by Daniel Ricciardo was sixth.

George Russell’s Mercedes, Sergio Perez’s Red Bull, Alex Albon’s Williams and the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg completed the top 10 on the timesheets.

‘Nothing seems to work’

Russell crashed into a wall at turn eight near the end of the session, but managed to limp back to the pits without his front wing which was embedded in the barrier.

His teammate Lewis Hamilton has won four times before in Singapore, but the seven-time world champion was a long way off the pace on Friday.

“At the moment, we won’t be going into Q3,” Hamilton said after coming 11th, 0.982 seconds behind Norris.

“We tried everything set-up wise and nothing seems to work.”

Singapore was the only race Red Bull failed to win last year in a dominant season.

They returned 12 months later having lost their lead at the top of the constructors’ standings to McLaren, who are 20 points ahead.

Verstappen has not won for seven grands prix as McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes have all taken the chequered flag.

It looks odds-on that his fortunes will not improve around the unpredictable city centre track, where he has never won.

Meanwhile, McLaren said Friday they would modify their controversial rear wing after other teams, led by Red Bull, questioned its legality.

Governing body the FIA had said the wing, which was dubbed by some observers as a “mini-DRS (drag reduction system)” after footage showed it moving at high speed, was legal and no modifications were needed.

“While our Baku rear wing complies with the regulations and passes all FIA deflection tests, McLaren have proactively offered to make some minor adjustments to the wing following our conversations with the FIA,” said a McLaren statement.

“We would also expect the FIA to have similar conversations with other teams in relation to the compliance of their rear wings.”

Max Verstappen declared “the fight is not over” as Red Bull head to Singapore this week having been knocked off the top of the constructors’ world championship for the first time in two-and-a-half years. McLaren leapt into a 20-point lead after Oscar Piastri’s masterful victory at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was compounded by Sergio Perez’s late tangle with Carlos Sainz that ended with both in the wall. McLaren’s Lando Norris, who carved his way to fourth place after starting 15th on the grid, is hunting down the Dutchman Verstappen at the top of the drivers’ standings.

The triple world champion’s lead has been reduced to 59 points with seven grands prix and three sprints to go, leaving a maximum of 207 points up for grabs.

Verstappen won seven of the first 10 races this season but he has not triumphed in the last seven as McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes have all taken race wins.

Red Bull’s influential adviser Helmut Marko said after Baku that they have no chance of retaining the constructors’ championship, but Verstappen has not conceded yet.

“We are going to work together as a team and the fight is not over,” declared Verstappen after coming fifth.

“You win or lose as a team and we won’t give up. It is as simple as that.”

But history suggests that Verstappen’s fortunes are unlikely to see an uptick around the unpredictable Marina Bay Circuit this weekend.

Red Bull have consistently struggled under the lights in Singapore. 

It was the only race Red Bull failed to win last year, Ferrari’s Sainz taking the chequered flag to deny Verstappen a record-extending 11th consecutive GP victory. Norris was second.

Verstappen has never won on the tight city-centre street circuit where tropical storms, intense humidity, concrete barriers, safety cars and red flags all add to the uncertainty.

Street circuit specialist Perez did win in Singapore in 2022, but that was Red Bull’s only victory there since Sebastian Vettel in 2013.

McLaren milestone

After a strong start to the campaign, Red Bull are on the back foot.

“We have lost out on some significant points in the championship,” team principal Christian Horner said after their messy Azerbaijan outing.

“However, we will brush ourselves down and fight back hard.”

McLaren, by contrast, are in buoyant mood as they target a first team world title since 1998.

“First in the constructors’ championship is an important milestone in our journey,” said team principal Andrea Stella.

“However, the team remain clearly focused on the task ahead. We quickly turn our attention to Singapore.”

The high downforce track in Singapore has traditionally been of benefit to Mercedes. 

“We’ve also got lots of data to work through ahead of Singapore,” said Lewis Hamilton, trying to take some positives from a ninth-place finish in Baku after an engine change forced him to start from the pit lane.

“We’ve got some upgrades coming before the end of the year so hopefully we can make a step closer to those at the front soon.”

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc won at Monza but he could not make it two in a row after starting from pole position for the fourth year in a row at Baku and, as on the three previous occasions, failing to convert into a victory. 

“For sure we have a bit of frustration because we had the space and pace to win this weekend,” lamented Ferrari chief Fred Vasseur.

In the end Leclerc did well to hang on to second after his hard tyres degraded badly behind Piastri in the second half of the race and then saw teammate Sainz’s late crash in his mirrors.

“It wasn’t the best day for our team,” said Leclerc, who is only 19 points behind Norris and still firmly in the hunt for the drivers’ title.

“But we now head to Singapore and will come back stronger.”

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri held off pole-sitter Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari for an epic win.© AFP

Oscar Piastri made clear on Thursday that he will not be pulling over to help his team-mate Lando Norris at every one of the remaining eight races this year following McLaren’s decision to adopt team orders in support of the title-chasing Briton. Speaking to reporters in Baku ahead of this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the Australian said he had accepted the principle of helping Norris, to support both him and the team. But he said he was adamant that he would remain free to race against him in certain races and circumstances.

“The main point is that it’s not purely going to be me pulling over for Lando at every single race because that’s how none of us, including Lando, want to go racing,” he said.

“Trying to go through all the scenarios is impossible and, of course, we don’t want to discuss that publicly.

“But I think the main one is if we feel that someone has done a much better job on a weekend, whatever way it is, we want that person to be rewarded.

“That’s where it becomes a little bit tricky. We need to continue discussing that.

“It’s not simply a blanket ‘I am going to be behind Lando in every single race, in every decision ever taken from here on’ because I still have things I want to achieve in the championship.

“As a team, we’re not leading the constructors’ (championship) so we need to make sure we win that… It’s very important we maintain that kind of trust.”

Team chief Andrea Stella had earlier Thursday told the BBC that McLaren would adopt team orders in certain scenarios to support Norris’s bid to overhaul three-time champion Max Verstappen’s 62-point lead in the drivers’ title race.

The Dutchman, who dominated last season for Red Bull, is without a win in six races during which his rivals have closed the performance gap.

“It needs more discussion,” said Piastri. “It’s something we have discussed a lot in the last few days and, of course, selfishly as a driver and in my own interests, team orders are not fun.

“In saying that, I realise there’s a much bigger picture here than just myself – I race for a team that’s given me my opportunity in F1 and a team that has given me the opportunity to win races within 18 months of being here.

“I have a lot of gratitude for that. Again, the bigger picture is about just more than me. We’re trying to achieve both championships, which for the team is an incredibly big thing.

“Of course, the constructors’ is one thing but if you have the opportunity to win both championships then as a team, it’s a massive objective to try and achieve that.”

Max Verstappen will look for an improved personal and team performance this weekend when Red Bull seek to stop the rot and stay on top in the Formula One title race at this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix. After a run of six races without a win that has coincided with the revival of his rivals, the Dutchman arrives in Baku with a 62-point lead in the drivers’ championship ahead of Lando Norris. His team’s advantage ahead of McLaren has also been trimmed to only eight points.

Verstappen’s and Red Bull’s last victory, his 61st, came at the Spanish Grand Prix in June while team-mate Sergio Perez last won on the streets of Baku, claiming his sixth career triumph and second in Azerbaijan in last year’s race.

Red Bull’s supreme domination that has seen them leading the constructors’ championship for more than two years, since the 2022 Spanish Grand Prix, will end if McLaren outscore them by nine points on Sunday.

In the aftermath of Aston Martin’s glossy unveiling of Red Bull’s star designer Adrian Newey as future managing technical partner on Tuesday, another defeat to knock them off the top could be seen as significant.

Both Verstappen and Mexican Perez have been busy working on finding solutions to their slump in form since Charles Leclerc claimed victory for Ferrari at Monza on September 1.

“Monza was a tough race for us and it is our priority to get our form back to where it needs to be,” said Verstappen.

“We always want to be more competitive and the team has been working hard on the issues we’ve had.”

“We’ve had a good period of reflection and work since the last race,” said Perez. “Both Max and I have been in the factory working to ensure we are finding a fix for the problems.

“To get back to where we should be on the grid, it will take a team effort and you can see that every day in Milton Keynes. This has pulled us all together.”

Perez leaning on Baku memories

Perez finished eighth at Monza, two places behind three-time world champion Verstappen, while both Ferraris, both McLarens and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton filled the top five.

After a season of much speculation about his future at Red Bull following a string of poor results, he welcomes the return to a venue he likes.

He is the only two-time winner in Baku and has scored more points there than any other driver.

“Personally, I love to race there,” he said. “Street circuits suit my style and Baku is a fun track.”

Ferrari will also be filled with hope in Baku after their success with an upgraded car at Monza where revisions to the floor and other areas proved successful.

But team chief Fred Vasseur stressed that the team will be focused on consistency and not checking the championship standings this weekend as they chase down Red Bull and McLaren.

“We have to focus on doing a good job every weekend and if something has to come to us, it will come. It’s no good to focus on the championship and be conservative… everything can change so much from one week to the next.”

With McLaren and Mercedes both claiming wins in recent races, a close scrap on the fast and challenging street track is in prospect, with Ferrari’s reserve driver Oliver Bearman replacing Kevin Magnussen alongside Nico Hulkenberg at Haas.

Dane Magnussen has been banned after accumulating 12 penalty points.

Charles Leclerc won the Italian Grand Prix on Sunday to delight Ferrari’s massed ranks of fans as Lando Norris again chipped away at struggling champion Max Verstappen’s lead in the Formula One drivers’ standings. Monegasque Leclerc claimed victory at Monza for the second time after winning in 2019, holding off McLaren pair Oscar Piastri and Norris in a thrilling race in which Verstappen finished nearly 38 seconds off the pace in sixth. Huge roars engulfed the stands as Leclerc took the chequered flag for his second win over the season, after his own home Monaco GP, after holding out on a set of hard tyres he had changed during his one and only pit stop on the 16th lap.

“I thought that the first time would feel like this and the second time wouldn’t feel as special,” said Leclerc as he basked in the cheers of fans who made the track a joyous, noisy sea of red after the race.

“But my god the emotions in the last few laps; Monaco and Monza are the two races I want to win every year and I’ve managed to win them this year. It is so, so special.”

All of Leclerc’s major rivals, apart from teammate Carlos Sainz who ended up finishing fourth ahead of his Ferrari replacement Lewis Hamilton, pitted twice and McLaren were hoping that the Ferrari pair would do the same.

Instead Leclerc managed to keep his tyres in good enough condition to stay ahead and in the end finish the race comfortably in front of Piastri, who had taken the race lead early on after an overtake manoeuvre on Norris which was as daring as it was tactically questionable.

“Not going to lie it hurts a lot. I did a lot of things right today,” said Australian Piastri.

“Happy with the race, the pace I achieved but when you finish second it hurts.”

Verstappen woes

Briton Norris — who clocked the fastest lap right at the end — will be disappointed by his finish after starting on pole but he managed to chop Verstappen’s championship lead to 62 points with eight races remaining as his Dutch rival’s barren run continued.

“We considered (pitting once) the whole race but it was impossible with our graining. Just disappointed. Ferrari did a better job, so hats off to them,” said Norris.

Verstappen has now failed to win any of the last six GPs after claiming the honours in seven of the first 10, and his and Red Bull’s dominance of F1 looks increasingly in question.

A fourth straight world title looked a near certainty when Verstappen won in Spain back in June, but since then he has only finished on the podium twice.

And his teammate Sergio Perez finishing in eighth meant that McLaren are now only eight points behind Red Bull in the constructor’s standings and look favourites to win it for the first time since 1998.

Argentine rookie Franco Colapinto, who replaced axed Logan Sargeant for Williams following his disastrous showing at the Dutch Grand Prix last weekend, finish in 12th in his F1 debut.

Earlier Leonardo Fornaroli became the first Italian to win the F3 title, the 19-year-old doing so without winning a single race in this year’s championship.

Trident driver Fornaroli overtook Australian Christian Mansell on the final corner of the 10-race season to grab third place and snatch the title from Gabriele Mini by two points.

Gabriel Bortoleto won the F2 race in dramatic fashion after starting last on the grid, cutting Isack Hadjar’s lead at the top of the stands to just 10.5 points with three races remaining in the season.

Championship leader Max Verstappen clocked one minute, 21.676 seconds.© AFP

McLaren’s Lando Norris dashed to victory at the Dutch Grand Prix Sunday, a superb drive consigning home favourite Max Verstappen to his first-ever loss in front of his “Orange Army” fans. The British driver claimed his second career chequered flag after winning in Miami in May, closing Verstappen’s lead over him in the world championship to 70 points, with the Dutchman coming second. Despite raucous encouragement from a packed Zandvoort circuit, Verstappen could not extract enough from his Red Bull to compete with a recently upgraded McLaren that is beginning to look like the car to beat in Formula One.

“It feels amazing… The pace was very strong and the car was unbelievable today,” said Norris, who also secured a point for the fastest lap. 

The start was critical. Questions have been asked of the starting ability of Norris, who has three times this season failed to convert pole position into a first lap lead.

And again Norris was sluggish off the line, allowing Verstappen to power around the outside to huge cheers from the crowd, who saw their man take a 0.9-second advantage into the second lap.

Buoyed by the fast start, Verstappen clocked the quickest lap in lap two, putting clear daylight between him and the McLaren of Norris.

But the McLaren had been the fastest car in the paddock all race weekend and Norris started slowly but surely eating into Verstappen’s lead.

By lap 17 out of 72, Norris was only a few tenths of a second behind Verstappen, the Dutchman complaining on his team radio of a lack of grip from his tyres.

‘I can’t go faster’

Norris passed him a lap later on the outside at turn one, Verstappen powerless to prevent the overtake and quickly falling further behind.

“I can’t go faster. The car is not responding to my inputs,” a desperate Verstappen told his engineers as Norris stretched his advantage to more than four seconds.

On lap 25, Verstappen decided enough was enough and he needed a new set of tyres.

Norris pitted the lap after, his team taking 0.6 seconds longer than the Red Bull for the pit stop.

Nevertheless, Norris emerged from the two stops five seconds ahead of his rival and promptly produced the fastest lap of the race on his new set of tyres.

By lap 40, Norris had extended the advantage to more than 10 seconds over the three-time champion and just had to stay out of trouble to take the chequered flag.

His eventual margin of victory was 22.896 seconds, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc holding off Norris’s McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri to claim the third podium spot after a thrilling battle.

Red Bull’s struggling second driver Sergio Perez finished in sixth position, meaning the gap in the constructors’ championship also narrowed from 42 points to 30.

“I wouldn’t say a perfect race because of lap one again, but afterwards it was beautiful,” said Norris.

“I expected Max to start pushing and get a bit of a gap. And he never did. So from that point, I knew we were in with a good fight,” added Norris.

“But he seemed to just keep dropping off. And my pace was getting better. So it’s a nice feeling inside the car. And especially when I got past, you know, I could just get comfortable.”

The F1 circus now moves on to the famous Monza track in Italy next weekend, round 16 of 24 with everyone snapping at Verstappen’s heels.

Verstappen has not won a Grand Prix since Barcelona in June, his longest barren spell since 2020 and while it is premature to talk of panic stations at Red Bull, the Dutch weekend will have given some cause for concern.

“You always try to do better and we had a good start, we tried everything we could today, but throughout the race it was quite clear that we are not quick enough, so I tried to be second today,” said Verstappen.

Max Verstappen, facing a 10-place grid penalty for taking a new engine, topped the times for Red Bull ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in a qualifying session run in mixed wet-and-dry conditions at the Belgian Grand Prix on Saturday. Leclerc will start Sunday’s race from pole position as he did in 2023 with Sergio Perez alongside him in the second Red Bull, the Mexican having ended a nightmare run of qualifying failures amid reports that his future with the team is at risk.

Seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton qualified fourth for Mercedes and will share the second row of the grid with McLaren’s Lando Norris, who qualified fifth ahead of team-mate Oscar Piastri and George Russell in the second Mercedes.

Carlos Sainz was eighth in the second Ferrari in front of compatriot and two-time champion Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin, Esteban Ocon of Alpine and Alex Albon of Williams — who will be 10th on the grid ahead of Verstappen.

“It was a nice qualifying and luckily the weather was ok,” said Verstappen, referring to earlier heavy rain that turned final practice into a washout. “It was raining a little bit, but we could do a decent session.

“I know I have to start 10 places back so this was the best I could do today and we’ll go from there. I don’t know quick we are going to be, but I hope we can be in the mix.”

Verstappen will be bidding to win the Belgian race for the fourth consecutive year, having won previously after taking grid penalties, but his car this year lacks the same clear superiority. Last year, he won from sixth. This year he starts 11th.

“It’s exactly the same as last year and, for me, it’s good as I didn’t expect that. We had tricky conditions and the rain helped us a bit and it’s good to be back at the front of the grid,” said Leclerc.

In steady but light rain, Norris led a train of cars from the pitlane for Q1, followed by both Haas cars and his McLaren team-mate Piastri, who was forced to drop to fourth by an exit by Kevin Magnussen that he described as “dangerous”.

– Racing in the rain –

A heavy shower was forecast by McLaren and this accelerated all 20 drivers to join the fray in pursuit of an early banker lap before the conditions deteriorated. All were on intermediates as Norris clocked 1:58.894 before being beaten by Piastri, in 1:57.411.

Verstappen then took over on top in 1:56.003 with Piastri threatening and taking second before rising to take command with five minutes to go in 1:55.549, before the Dutchman regained the ascendancy.

He clocked 1:54.938 to go six-tenths clear of Piastri while Norris struggled to match him and Russell fought to survive, rising from 17th to third in the final seconds of Q1.

Taking advantage of a problem for Verstappen, who was involved in a blocking incident with Zhou Guanyu’s Sauber, Piastri took top spot again in 1:54.835 ahead of Pierre Gasly.

The early departures were taken by the two Haas men, Nico Hulkenberg and Magnussen, RB’s Yuki Tsunoda, who will start from the back of the grid after taking a penalty for new power unit parts, Logan Sargeant of Williams and Zhou.

Q2 began in similar fashion, with rain forecast and all 15 runners on track, Alex Albon setting the early pace for Williams before Norris took over in 1:54.459 and then Verstappen, in 1:53.857. All were on ‘inters’ again.

With five minutes to go, Russell and Leclerc, with fresh tyres, were both in the drop-zone as the rain intensified. Russell reacted by leaping to fourth followed by Leclerc, taking third, and Hamilton up fifth.

Late faster laps from Perez, Ocon and Gasly pushed the Mercedes pair to go second and third while the under-pressure Perez survived by 0.003 seconds. Albon, Pierre Gasly of Alpine, Daniel Ricciardo of RB, Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll, whose Aston Martin team had rebuilt his car after his crash in FP3, missed the cut.

Hamilton was first out for Q3 and posted a lap in 1:54.011 as a marker.

On their first runs, only the two Red Bulls beat him, Verstappen going top in 1:53.159, leaving it all down to the final laps to decide the final grid order.