Last Year's Singapore Grand Prix Winner, Carlos Sainz, Brings Out Red Flag in Q3

Last year's Singapore Grand Prix winner, Carlos Sainz, found himself in the wall at the exit of his first out-lap in the final stage of qualifying. The rear tires of Sainz's Ferrari lacked grip, and Sainz ended up in the wall before the start of his qualifying lap.

"I don't know if I had cold tires, dirty air, or I... Big Snap," Sainz said over the radio.

Sainz was summoned to the Steward's post-qualifying after the driver crossed the hot track to return to the pits from his crashed race car.

Last year, Sainz was the only non-Red Bull driver to win a Grand Prix by starting on the pole. The Singapore street circuit is a hard track to pass on with its narrow corners.

The red flag came just two minutes into the Q3, with only Oscar Piastri and Nico Hulkenberg to set a lap before the crash occurred. Max Verstappen, who worried about making it into Q3, was finishing his lap when Sainz's crash occurred and had his time deleted.

After approximately 15 minutes, the Ferrari was cleared, and the barrier was restored with 8:06 frozen on the clock. No teams sent their drivers out until the three-minute remaining mark, leaving the seven drivers remaining only one chance to take their shot at the pole.

McLaren's Lando Norris and Red Bull's Max Verstappen will start the Grand Prix on the front row in reverse order from their championship standings, with Norris on the pole.

This is Norris' sixth pole of the season, he has failed to maintain the lead on the first lap in all six of his pole starts and as only rebounded for a win once.

I think all of qualifying actually went quite well," Verstappen told James Hinchcliffe. "We managed to improve the car run after run, really with FP3. I'm happy to be on the front row when you look at where we came from yesterday. Q3 was tough; your lap gets, of course, canceled with the double yellow, and then everyone gets only one run to do the lap; you don't want to overdo it. You want to stay within the limits. I'll take second."

Yesterday, while Verstappen couldn't find speed on the circuit, he was also dealing with Steward's complaint for swearing in a media session while being asked about the drivers' use of language.

Lewis Hamilton, who had his only podium of the 2023 season at the Singapore circuit last year, qualified third. His Mercedes teammate George Russell will share the second row after complaining about how different the tires were handling between FP3 and qualifying on Saturday evening. Piastri shares the third row with Hulkenberg, followed by the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso and VCARB of Yuki Tsunoda.

Charles Leclerc's time was deleted, pushing him out of fourth place to start ninth next to his crashed teammate Sainz.

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