Drama in Singapore! Disaster for Ferrari, Sainz crashed hard. Qualifying dominated by Norris, high surprise names

Formula 1 has one last stop on its agenda this weekend before the planned autumn break. Free practice was followed by Saturday’s qualifying, which was won by Lando Norris with a dominant time. He will be joined on the front row by Max Verstappen, with Carlos Sainz suffering a bad crash.

• Formula One has one last stop on the schedule this weekend before the planned autumn break
• Saturday’s qualifying was easily dominated by Lando Norris
• Carlos Sainz crashes hard in Q3

The story of this year’s Formula 1 season continues with the Singapore Grand Prix. Free practice was followed by Saturday’s qualifying, which determined the drivers’ grid positions for Sunday’s race.

The first qualifying segment produced virtually no major surprises. The slowest time of all was set by Zhou Kuan-yu in the Sauber, with his teammate finishing nineteenth. Pierre Gasly (Alpine) also failed to qualify for the second part of the qualifying session.

Lance Stroll also had a very poor qualifying session, with his time only good enough for P17. Daniel Ricciardo, 16th, lost roughly a decade and a half to qualify and is far from certain of a place in the VCARB for next year and the rest of the season.

Lando Norris won the first part of qualifying with a time of 1:30.002. He was followed by Max Verstappen, with Oscar Piastri in third. Incidentally, both Williams drivers also advanced, having recorded a very good result in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Second part of qualifying (Q2)

In the second part of the qualifying session, we were already under a minute and a half. The winner of Q2 was Australian Piastri, who set a time of 1:29.640. Only 40 thousand seconds behind him was Verstappen, who drove a truly awesome lap on the edge of his limits.

Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, Lando Norris, Carlos Sainz, Nico Hülkenberg, George Russell, Júki Cunoda and Fernando Alonso also qualified for Q3.

Eleventh-placed Alexander Albon missed out on qualifying for Q3 by just 24 thousandths of a second. His Williams teammate Franco Colapinto also failed to qualify. Even Sergio Pérez, who will start the second part of qualifying at best 13th, failed to qualify.

This is understandably a big setback for the Red Bull driver heading into the grand prix. Fourteenth and fifteenth respectively belong to Kevin Magnussen and Esteban Ocon.

Sainz crashed hard, Norris easily dominated qualifying

The opening part of the third qualifying segment produced Verstappen’s fastest attempt. However, his time of 1:29.791 was wiped out by the sports commissioners, reportedly due to double yellow flags.

Shortly after the start of the last segment of qualifying, the Spaniard Sainz broke his monoposto. He was just about to make his quick attempt, but then lost control of his car and ended up in the barrier. The Ferrari driver lost the rear wing, broke the suspension, apparently also the gearbox and the engine itself is also in question.

After the monoposto and all the debris was removed and the barrier was adjusted to its original position, the red flags stopped flying at the Marina Bay circuit. Racing could then resume. With time remaining, the drivers got everything set up for one good, quick attempt.

Sainz, it must be added, will start tenth thanks to his progression to Q3. But of course, as a result of the accident, he didn’t set any time, nor did his teammate Leclerc. The team didn’t prepare his tyres properly, which were 10 degrees cooler than they should have been.

Cunoda will start eighth, Alonso seventh and Hülkenberg sixth. The Australian Piastri qualified fifth, but he pushed too hard and his quick attempt simply failed.

The second row of the grid was occupied by both Mercedes drivers. Fourth-placed Russell and fifth-placed Hamilton both lost over three tenths of a second to the qualifying winner. And it was Norris who was the winner, setting an admirable time of 1:29.525. He will be joined on the front row by Verstappen, who lost two tenths.

Source: F1 TV, X