Ferrari disaster in qualifying in Singapore, while on the front row the World Championship duel between Lando Norris, author of the pole, and Max Verstappen, reborn despite the Red Bull crisis and capable of climbing to second place, is back. The Reds will start on the fifth row: Carlos Sainz due to an accident on the first launch lap in Q3, Charles Leclerc due to a mistake that cost him the cancellation of his time (it would have been only the 7th in any case) in the only attempt available after the red flag due to the crash of his teammate. Tomorrow the two Red drivers will experience a very complicated race, on a circuit where it is very difficult, if not impossible, to overtake. Leclerc was very black at the end, a tone of mood that recalled the carbon-colored uniform with which he triumphed in Monza, due to the tires that he said were not at the right temperature. “They weren’t even 50% ready,” the Monegasque vented, “we came out of the pits and I don’t even know what temperature I had at the front. And all this in the only attempt we had. So I locked up in turn 1.” In the next corner he exceeded the limits of the track, hence the stewards’ decision to take away his time. “I’m disappointed,” Charles continued, “we prepare so much and then make a mistake like that. The tires were cold, I couldn’t even risk it, we had the potential to do much better.” Frederic Vasseur, the team principal, tries to defend the team: “I think Charles started the lap with the right temperature,” he said, “even if I haven’t spoken to him yet. We waited a bit to go out so as not to send him out first, there was only one lap, he crossed the line by a few centimeters, it’s part of the game.”
A taboo to be erased
Norris, on the other hand, can smile. He has only converted one of the five pole positions obtained in his career into a victory and, considering the front rows, he has only been able to climb onto the top step of the podium once out of 11, at the end of August in Holland, but now in Singapore he is trying again. For weeks he has been driving the best car, the McLaren, even without the decisive “mini Drs” in Baku and rejected by the FIA, but in the World Championship standings he is still very far (59 points) from Verstappen. This is perhaps the last chance to truly reopen the discussion and the Englishman was ready in qualifying despite a session full of twists and turns: his first pole in the Marina Bay area, the sixth of his career, gives him a wild card on a circuit where those who have started from the front have won 9 times out of 14 (64.3%). Perfect since the start of free practice, Lando is determined to erase the disaster of Baku (16th on the grid), which he partially remedied with fourth place in the race. Tomorrow he will have to erase his biggest taboo: never, in the seven times he has started in the lead between GP (5) and Sprint (2), has he managed to finish the first lap in the lead.
Double disappointment
A duel with Ferrari was expected, but they had a Saturday to forget. Sainz, who took pole last year, accompanied by the only victory of the season for the Reds, eliminated himself by crashing at the end of the launch lap. The Spaniard lost control of the SF-24, ending up against the barriers on the outside, fortunately without consequences: “I don’t know if the tyres were too cold or what happened”, was his comment, which recalls that of Leclerc. He will start the 200th GP of his career from the fifth row, with the chances of repeating the triumph of twelve months ago practically zero. The same goes for Charles, a specialist of street circuits, who instead came from the splendid pole in Baku which was then not converted into a victory due to Oscar Piastri and the “mini Drs” of McLaren, the rear wing with flexible profiles rejected by the FIA outside the maximum time limit. No one has scored more points than the Monegasque on metropolitan layouts this season, 100 in 6 GPs with the memorable triumph in Monte Carlo, yet today he didn’t even come close to a third personal pole in Singapore, which would also have been the fourth consecutive on this track for the Reds. After a very competitive Friday, this morning Charles had woken up with some difficulty: “I have no grip”, he complained in the final free practice session. The same phrase was heard after the failed attempt in Q3, which will force him to start from 9th position. The need to warm up the tyres quickly took away the possibility of preparing them correctly on the launch lap. And so sensationally both Ferraris ended qualifying without a time, with the regret that the time achieved in Q2 by the Monegasque would have been worth the second row.
Mercedes in the second row
Sainz’s accident caused the cancellation of Verstappen’s first attempt, despite the three-time world champion having lifted his foot once he noticed the double yellow flag. The Dutchman is still nervous: he let himself go on a new team radio forbidden to minors, calling some of the drivers in front of him a “group of idiots”, we’ll see if he will be punished again as he was for the swear words in the press conference. In any case, Super Max was able to react and tomorrow he will be there next to Norris, the worst possible nightmare for the young Englishman. Behind the title duelists will be the two Mercedes, with Lewis Hamilton ahead of George Russell, both capable of preceding Oscar Piastri, only fifth with the other McLaren.
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