Singapore –
Max Verstappen was looking on course for pole position at Saturday’s Singapore Grand Prix when his Red Bull team abandoned his lap with a fuel issue just seconds from the end of qualifying, allowing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to take pole instead.
“Why why why?” Verstappen asked when asked to box, before unleashing an expletive.
He soon found out why.
“They told me to box and then I realized what was going to happen. We ran out of fuel,” Verstappen told Sky. “It’s incredibly frustrating and shouldn’t be happening… At the very least, track that throughout the session to know you’re not going to make it.” We should have seen that much sooner.”
Verstappen will start eighth despite winning from 14th on the grid in Belgium this season.
He was a long way from Leclerc at the split times but Red Bull called him out just as he was about to fall under the fuel limit regulations. Riders can be disqualified if they run out of fuel, which would have meant starting from last place.
Still, he was clearly unhappy with what had happened.
“I’m not happy at all at the moment, of course I know it’s always a team effort and I can make mistakes and the team can make mistakes but that’s never acceptable,” he said. “Of course you learn from it, but it’s really bad. It mustn’t happen.”
Leclerc clinched a season-leading ninth pole to finish 0.022s clear of Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez and 0.054s ahead of Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton.
“It was incredibly close, a really exciting session,” said Hamilton, who has a record 103 career poles but none this year. “A really clean qualifying session. It was so difficult to get that lap perfect.”
Perez is confident he can fight for victory.
“It’s an opportunity to attack Charles from the start tomorrow and I’m going to go for the win,” said Perez. “It’s quite disappointing to miss two hundredths but at the end of the day I think they did a fantastic job. Very happy.”
But Verstappen’s starting position is hurting his chances of winning the title on Sunday at a difficult-to-overtake road circuit. Leclerc has a good chance of winning his fourth race of the season.
“I thought we wouldn’t get pole, but it paid off and I’m really happy,” said Leclerc. “It was really, really special, every qualifying on street circuits is great at the limit.”
Leclerc called it “a matter of time before Max gets his title”.
Verstappen leads Leclerc by 116 points and will only win his second straight title if he scores 22 points more than Leclerc, his most realistic challenger.
He needs to win to secure Sunday’s title along with two other scenarios involving Leclerc. If Verstappen wins, Leclerc cannot finish higher than ninth; If Verstappen wins and gets a bonus point for fastest lap, Leclerc cannot go higher than eighth.
In the build-up to the race, arguments erupted between the teams over an alleged breach of the 2021 budget cap by Red Bull, prompting an angry reaction from Red Bull team boss Christian Horner.
Hamilton was also asked to appear before the stewards shortly after the end of practice three at the Marina Bay Circuit because of a possible broken jewel.
The seven-time F1 champion was later acquitted after being investigated for an alleged breach of Schedule L, Chapter III of the FIA’s International Sporting Code, which includes a ban on the wearing of jewellery. The subpoena related to Hamilton’s nose stud, which he previously removed when the FIA’s jewelry ban was applied.
Hamilton said he told the stewards before the start of qualifying that he had to keep the stud due to complications related to a blood blister on his nose. Hamilton said he had a doctor’s note showing all of this, and the stewards accepted his explanation after reviewing the footage.
Meanwhile, two-time F1 champion Fernando Alonso will start behind Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr. and from fifth in his record-breaking 350th F1 race on Sunday, which will be one more than 2007 F1 champion Kimi Raikkonen.
McLaren’s Lando Norris was sixth and AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly qualified seventh ahead of Verstappen, Kevin Magnussen (Haas) and Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) in 10th.
Williams driver Alex Albon, who was driving just three weeks after being hospitalized with appendicitis and respiratory failure, qualified 19th.
He left Q1 with Valtteri Bottas, Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon – who have 19 F1 wins combined. Bottas will start from 16th place, Ricciardo 17th place and Ocon 18th place.
On the previous Saturday, Leclerc led a rainy third and final practice session ahead of Verstappen. Half of the session was lost as marshals swept water from the 5km track, which had mostly dried up for qualifying.
Midway through Q2 some drivers switched to the faster slicks while others stayed on intermediate tyres. Mercedes driver George Russell will start 11th after retiring from Q2 with four-time F1 Champion Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin).