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- 7 hours ago
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00:00:00...of all of that, isn't it?
00:00:01Yeah.
00:00:01We know the six that will be taking no further part in this,
00:00:06but clearly quite a lot of gremlins going on behind the scenes.
00:00:11Which, when you come to a street circuit,
00:00:14what have we had now?
00:00:15Madrid and then Baku and then Singapore.
00:00:19Three street circuits in the space of four races.
00:00:22It's the end of a triple header as well.
00:00:25It's a very busy time of the year.
00:00:27Everything is put in place and is checked and is double-checked,
00:00:32but street circuits are often not the easiest places in the world
00:00:36to try and get the systems put in and everything sorted.
00:00:40I think we got into Singapore on Monday.
00:00:43The track was certainly shut Wednesday night,
00:00:46but up to then, people were driving around the track
00:00:50and rather enjoying driving the track as well,
00:00:52albeit, of course, down Raffles Boulevard.
00:00:55They were going the wrong way.
00:00:56Right, here we go.
00:00:57Max Verstappen, who left it late for various reasons,
00:01:02is not going to leave it late on this one.
00:01:03He's coming out straight away.
00:01:06Yeah, that was a high-risk strategy with the yellow flag,
00:01:09but it worked out for the two Red Bull drivers.
00:01:12And, as you say, he's getting out now early to get a lap in the bag
00:01:16as they've got a little bit less time.
00:01:19It's already down to just nine and a half minutes.
00:01:22And, of course, an out lap is something like 100 seconds at 1 minute 40 at best.
00:01:30So your time soon ebbs away, and the same with an in lap.
00:01:36And on the medium tyres, you can afford just to push a bit more.
00:01:40They're a slightly more robust tyre.
00:01:42The C4 rather than the C5 soft.
00:01:47Orlando Norris wear a special tribute helmet for this weekend.
00:01:53And, of course, you have to use brand new set again.
00:01:56And if you make a mistake, if you lock them up, you're in big trouble.
00:02:00You can't have another set.
00:02:01They certainly are.
00:02:02Ted, what have you got for us?
00:02:03Very quickly, just talking about big trouble.
00:02:05Pierre Gasly hit the front of his front wing on the pit wall.
00:02:09It is quite tight getting out of these garages.
00:02:11They don't think...
00:02:12It doesn't look like he's actually damaged the front wing.
00:02:14Just a quick nerf against the wall.
00:02:16The mechanic's pushed him backwards, and he's on his way again.
00:02:19Yeah, it's been widened, though, hasn't it, the pit lane?
00:02:21A little.
00:02:21By a metre.
00:02:22A little, yeah.
00:02:23But with the steering lock on a Formula One car,
00:02:27a metre's not a huge amount.
00:02:28It's not, because the front geometry is so extreme
00:02:30and the front tyres are so fat,
00:02:32you really can't get much steering lock on.
00:02:35Right, here we go.
00:02:36Max Verstappen.
00:02:37Never got a pole here in Singapore.
00:02:41In all his years competing here,
00:02:43never got a win here in Singapore.
00:02:45He's been on the front row for the Grand Prix
00:02:47for the last two years.
00:02:49Does that change this weekend?
00:02:51Winner, of course, in Malaysia last time out.
00:02:54From pole position.
00:02:55Take us through the rest of the lap, Martin.
00:02:56Yeah, up against the wall in T5, turn six,
00:02:59absolutely flat out.
00:03:01And they don't tend to waste too many metres around there,
00:03:04going around the outside,
00:03:05because they need to be on the right-hand side.
00:03:07For this corner.
00:03:09And immediately they're accelerating.
00:03:12With so much electrical energy.
00:03:14That was very close to the wall.
00:03:15So much electrical energy.
00:03:17These things must accelerate
00:03:20like you've driven them off a cliff,
00:03:22with that amount of power,
00:03:24with that amount of power,
00:03:24and a street circuit environment.
00:03:26And then a little Nicky Monks bit
00:03:27leading up to the Anderson Bridge.
00:03:30And you're never really going straight
00:03:32through this section,
00:03:34until you can get on to the Esplanade Straight.
00:03:38And then you will diagonal that
00:03:40for the shortest route to be on the left-hand side
00:03:43at the end for the downhill braking.
00:03:45And again, not too close to the wall there.
00:03:49And it's a good...
00:03:50And why we've seen more overtakers
00:03:52is to change this layout.
00:03:54You've got this longer straight here.
00:03:55A tricky little chicane.
00:03:58On the way in is fine.
00:03:59On the way out is tight up against that wall.
00:04:02And then the belief you need
00:04:05through these last two corners
00:04:06to be absolutely flat out.
00:04:08Opening the rear wing as well.
00:04:10And we're 7 tenths faster than he did in SQ1.
00:04:15Wow.
00:04:15George Russell, 3 tenths down on Max Verstappen
00:04:18through the middle sector.
00:04:20Match Max in the first part of the lap.
00:04:22Kimi Antonelli just put in the best middle sector so far.
00:04:25Oli Behrman with a 1.34-4.
00:04:27He improves by half a second,
00:04:29but not enough to get past either Max or his teammate,
00:04:32Esteban Ocon.
00:04:33It was 3 milliseconds faster in the other half.
00:04:36George Russell then past our commentary box.
00:04:39Lawson through the last two corners.
00:04:42He ends up 6 tenths down on Max Verstappen.
00:04:45Here comes Kimi Antonelli in the distance
00:04:47in the other Mercedes.
00:04:48He goes second fastest.
00:04:50Still Max, 3 tenths up
00:04:51and the only driver in the 1.32s
00:04:53as Hülkenberg puts in the 4th fastest time.
00:04:56And Lewis Hamilton with a 27.2
00:04:58has got 2 tenths in his pocket
00:05:00through the first part of the lap.
00:05:01Yeah, they're good times from Hülkenberg.
00:05:03They're very good times indeed,
00:05:04right behind George Russell.
00:05:063 tenths behind Antonelli.
00:05:08Lawson now pops himself up there in 4th
00:05:11and the track is still evolving
00:05:13as Lewis Hamilton pushes that Ferrari
00:05:16for all it's worth in the traction zones
00:05:19on the exit of the corners.
00:05:21Swings it into and your hand comes across
00:05:24in front of your face, but you're not looking.
00:05:27Ridiculous thing to say really,
00:05:29but it's not that often you're looking out the front
00:05:31of these cars when it matters.
00:05:32You're always looking to one side or the other.
00:05:35That's why you can't actually see the halo
00:05:37when you're sitting in the car.
00:05:39The bit that's in directly in front of you anyway.
00:05:42Whatever they did to Pierre Gasly's front wing
00:05:45as it touched the wall, it's done wonders.
00:05:484th fastest as Hamilton now goes quickest.
00:05:51His teammate Charles Leclerc will be next to cross the line.
00:05:55Charles Leclerc goes faster by a tenth of a second.
00:05:58So it's Ferrari one and two currently.
00:06:01Lando Norris third fastest in the McLaren.
00:06:06Lap by lap with Lando Norris.
00:06:08It does look like they have managed to fix those fuel system issues.
00:06:11Oscar Piastri just lagging behind a touch.
00:06:13Half a second down on his teammate.
00:06:15If an F1 car comes into view
00:06:17and the back end's hanging out,
00:06:18it's almost always Piastri driving it.
00:06:20He does like the tail end of the car moving around.
00:06:25Well, I don't know if he likes it, but he can tolerate it.
00:06:27That's the Audi there of Gabriel Bortoletto
00:06:30currently down in the bottom six
00:06:32along with Isaac Hajar in the other Red Bull.
00:06:36And Fernando Alonso, Franco Colopinto
00:06:38and the two houses of Ocon and Behrman
00:06:41who are kind of out very early.
00:06:44And this track is ramping up all the time
00:06:46and is getting faster and faster all the time.
00:06:49So we've seen it before.
00:06:52Esteban Ocon, I think it was last week,
00:06:53he said, yeah, we were out too early.
00:06:55They need to...
00:06:56Yeah, a couple of big snaps at the end.
00:06:58Yeah, last eight in the last two corners.
00:07:00Sure.
00:07:01It could be last driver over the line
00:07:03gets the better of the conditions for qualifying.
00:07:05A big snap will be the back end of the car stepping out oversteer.
00:07:10We like to impress ourselves with the terminology.
00:07:14Grit limited.
00:07:16Put some baked beans in a shopping trolley
00:07:18and then you can do a nice little demonstration in the supermarket
00:07:21a little later on today, should you have the time.
00:07:24Airport trolleys always understeer in my experience.
00:07:26The front doesn't want to turn.
00:07:28Yes.
00:07:29Supermarket trolleys...
00:07:30It depends where you put the beans.
00:07:31Except when you're coming out on the wheels a lot
00:07:34because you shouldn't be taking the trolley where you're taking it.
00:07:37Anyway.
00:07:38George Russell.
00:07:38Trolley torque.
00:07:39George Russell, due to turn nine,
00:07:41looked like he was taking the Mercedes somewhere he didn't want to
00:07:43and it went very close to the wall, quite frankly.
00:07:46That looked nice from him though.
00:07:47Oh, George.
00:07:48That wasn't.
00:07:48That's not the right thing to do with these medium-compound tyres.
00:07:51He's abandoned that lap.
00:07:54And P8, under pressure, is George Russell.
00:07:58But he has time now to charge the battery.
00:08:00Think about it.
00:08:02I mean, that right front will vibrate at high speed,
00:08:06but kind of so what around here.
00:08:09That's a big lock-up there, isn't it?
00:08:11Yeah.
00:08:12Luckily not at huge speed.
00:08:15So, yeah, when you push a tyre down the...
00:08:17We haven't done any favours, mind you,
00:08:19but when you push a tyre down the road and it's not rotating,
00:08:22you just wear a flat patch in it.
00:08:24Of course, that's where all the smoke comes from.
00:08:26And then it vibrates like crazy.
00:08:28Does that put George out of sync a little bit, I wonder?
00:08:31He'll have a cool-down lap and then go for it.
00:08:36Needs a time better than a 133.3, I'd imagine, to get himself through.
00:08:42Yeah, what it does do is you can mix and match the...
00:08:45Obviously, you can't...
00:08:47You can mix and match your sets of tyres.
00:08:51That's all you can do with them.
00:08:52But if George wants to keep a set of mediums,
00:08:56that right front is not going to be a good one.
00:08:58No, it's not.
00:08:59He's just crawling around, George Russell,
00:09:02trying to keep his tyres nice and cool
00:09:04as we watch Max Verstappen,
00:09:05his teammate Isaac Hadjar,
00:09:07is on the fringes of the top ten,
00:09:10but just the wrong side of it.
00:09:11Nico Hülkenberg currently in that top ten.
00:09:13It's a decent first sector from Hadjar.
00:09:15Over 27.3 that Max Verstappen matched.
00:09:18Lewis Hamilton keeps out of the way.
00:09:21If you're just joining us,
00:09:22Max Verstappen overtaking Lewis Hamilton under a yellow flag.
00:09:25That is going to be investigated after the session
00:09:28at that incident when there was debris on the track
00:09:30from the first part of qualifying.
00:09:33Swing it round at the right-hander at 14,
00:09:35and now through the kink of 15,
00:09:37flat out to the next chicane.
00:09:39Not a personal best for Max,
00:09:41but he did have an awful lot of traffic
00:09:42through that sector of the lap.
00:09:44Let's see what these final two corners can do for him.
00:09:48Behind him there, all queuing up,
00:09:50waiting to start their final flying laps.
00:09:53As Verstappen crosses the line,
00:09:55ace the final sector even with all that traffic,
00:09:57but is the only fourth fastest.
00:10:00Isaac Hadjar is on a flying lap.
00:10:03He is going to have to pick his way through a bit of traffic.
00:10:05It's just ahead of him.
00:10:07There it is, all keeping to the left-hand side.
00:10:09As Hadjar through turn 17,
00:10:11gives it quite a margin out of that particular chicane.
00:10:15It's a personal best lap.
00:10:17It's good enough for fifth fastest for Isaac Hadjar.
00:10:20Kimi Antonelli is next across the line in anger
00:10:24and on a flying lap.
00:10:25He's currently P6,
00:10:26wants to make it through to the top ten.
00:10:28Of course, that was very close to track limits.
00:10:30Stays P6, the 1.32.9.
00:10:33On board now with Liam Lawson giving it absolutely everything
00:10:37through turn 17,
00:10:39fighting away at the wheel.
00:10:40And that is top eight for him.
00:10:43Fernando Alonso will be next to cross the line,
00:10:45former winner of a Grand Prix here in 2008,
00:10:47the first time we came to Singapore.
00:10:51Absolutely, slightly, yes, infamous.
00:10:54Infamous win.
00:10:55Infamous victory, wasn't it?
00:10:56To say the least.
00:10:57The flag is out.
00:10:59Alonso's on two personal best.
00:11:01Can he squeeze into the top ten with this?
00:11:04No, is the answer.
00:11:05And it would have put Russell under a lot of pressure.
00:11:07But Russell's fastest of anybody in the first sector.
00:11:10Alonso and Behrman both out of qualifying.
00:11:14Ocon out of qualifying two.
00:11:16Fernando was the first driver to take the chequered flag.
00:11:20P13 for him after scoring Aston Martin's best result
00:11:23last week out in Malaysia of eighth.
00:11:25Leclerc goes fastest overall.
00:11:28Three tenths up on his teammate, Lewis Hamilton,
00:11:30who's on a lap but has backed off a little bit
00:11:32in the middle sector.
00:11:33Franco Colopinto squeezes into the top ten.
00:11:37That leaves Nico Hülkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto
00:11:40trying to make their way through now for Audi.
00:11:43Hamilton backed off and is pitting.
00:11:44They think he's safe.
00:11:45Russell going very well indeed on his latest lap.
00:11:48Here comes Hülkenberg out in twelfth.
00:11:51Russell needs to now get out of that bottom six.
00:11:54Bortoleto next across the line swaps places with Fernando Alonso,
00:11:57who won that Grand Prix in 2008 from 15th on the grid.
00:12:01And guess what?
00:12:02He's 15th on the grid at the moment for the sprint race tomorrow.
00:12:05George Russell needs to get out of qualifying.
00:12:08It's been a very good first two sectors,
00:12:10and that is good enough.
00:12:11132.6, P4 for George Russell.
00:12:14It pushes Franco Colopinto down and out of qualifying.
00:12:18You don't sense that Mercedes has got the fastest car here again,
00:12:21though, do you?
00:12:21No.
00:12:22So far in this qualifying session anyway.
00:12:25But Russell, we know he had to go again after that lockup,
00:12:28but he's through.
00:12:29And as you say, it just pushes Colopinto out of it,
00:12:33and that's all she wrote on SQ2.
00:12:37And you're right with what you say, Martin,
00:12:39but what changes now for the final part of qualifying?
00:12:42We go from the medium tire to the soft tire.
00:12:45And so often in these sprint qualifying, we see a different balance,
00:12:49a different handling, and sometimes different speeds between the cars.
00:12:53Close.
00:12:53Close.
00:12:55Close.
00:12:58Close enough, Oli.
00:13:00Don't you worry about that.
00:13:01We have lost the two hases of Esteban Ocon and Gabriel Portoletto.
00:13:05We've lost Fernando Alonso.
00:13:07We have lost Nico Hülkenberg.
00:13:09And Franco Colopinto, one Alpine out, one Alpine through.
00:13:12And Charles Leclerc the fastest.
00:13:22Friday night in Singapore.
00:13:24The streets are busy in qualifying.
00:13:27That's right.
00:13:28Was it my way?
00:13:31That'll be the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton there, then, Martin.
00:13:34The same Lewis Hamilton who reported in SQ1
00:13:37that Max had overtaken him under a yellow flag.
00:13:41Lauren Mecky's team boss at Red Bull.
00:13:43It seems Max was keen to point that out.
00:13:46A case of tit for tat, Mr. Team Principal.
00:13:51No, I'm not sure if it's a reaction to the previous one.
00:13:54Honestly, he just got a lot of traffic in that middle sector,
00:13:57including Lewis.
00:13:59So we lost a fair bit of time, but luckily it was enough
00:14:03to go through SQ3.
00:14:05Laurent, is it possible that some cars in SQ1
00:14:08had a half of megajoule more power with the systems,
00:14:12with the gremlins in the system and the overtake mode?
00:14:16Not sure about the other car.
00:14:17I think some cars may have gotten less.
00:14:21I think one of our cars was in that case.
00:14:25Not sure if somebody got more.
00:14:28Interesting.
00:14:28We're just trying to clear up a few things.
00:14:31Would you say, on the medium type, all looking very nice,
00:14:34is there a shift in power?
00:14:37Do you think, well, not power, but a shift in the balance?
00:14:40Now we go on to the soft.
00:14:42Do you think you've got the speed, the grip,
00:14:45to be challenging for Paul?
00:14:46You know, it's super tight.
00:14:48You know, Q1, we were on top.
00:14:49Q2, it's on top.
00:14:53We've seen Mercedes flying earlier today.
00:14:56So I think we are all super tight.
00:14:57Also, Lando was very tight.
00:14:59So, you know, now even changing the compound,
00:15:02I think it will be difficult to pick which one of the four top teams
00:15:06is going to put up there.
00:15:07I think the four teams have the possibility to do it.
00:15:10So it's going to be about extracting everything out of the next one.
00:15:13And what sort of delta, what sort of improvement can we expect with the soft tyre?
00:15:18From what we saw this morning on the Fugal, at least four days, we'll see.
00:15:24Lauren, thank you so much.
00:15:26I think it's time to get busy.
00:15:28Thanks for joining us tonight.
00:15:29We'll speak to you again tomorrow.
00:15:30The cars coming out of their garages.
00:15:34Right.
00:15:34So, as I said, British drivers have taken every sprint pole in 2026.
00:15:40Three of them.
00:15:41Two, George Russell.
00:15:43Max Verstappen, ten sprint poles.
00:15:45Hasn't even been on the sprint front row this year.
00:15:48And Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri also not even on the sprint front row in 2026.
00:15:55And I get the feeling if they hook up a good lap here, anyone could be a contender.
00:16:01Ted Kravitz, to you.
00:16:02Now, Crofty, we know from, well, we're told by the strategist that this soft tyre is good for one lap,
00:16:10or rather it's at the best it's one lap.
00:16:11And after, if you do more laps on it, then it gradually gets a bit slower
00:16:15by about a tenth or two tenths of a second per lap after that.
00:16:19And you would imagine the Ferraris, Max Verstappen, the Red Bulls, Verstappen and Hadjar,
00:16:25and Lawson and Gasly think that too.
00:16:28In that case, Crofty, then why have Norris, Piastri and the two Mercedes gone out now
00:16:34when the track is still dusty and maybe not at its quickest,
00:16:37given that we think the fastest lap is going to be the first one on this red tyre?
00:16:41Scratch that, Leclerc has gone past me in the pit lane.
00:16:43But I can see what the others are thinking.
00:16:46I can see what Lawson and Gasly are thinking.
00:16:48I expect them to be the very last out.
00:16:50We didn't manage to ask Lauren McKees whether the Red Bulls are going to be the last out as well.
00:16:56But I kind of would go with track improvement and going late, yes.
00:17:01I'll tell you why Max Verstappen hasn't come out yet.
00:17:03Is there a problem?
00:17:04They are looking into something at the rear of his Red Bull.
00:17:08Oh, no.
00:17:08Paul Monaghan, the chief engineer, is looking a little bit agitated, shall we say.
00:17:14Yeah, pedals as we all know him.
00:17:17He used to do the pedals at McLaren back when he was a student or something.
00:17:21But a great engineer.
00:17:23And he did look pretty unhappy about something, didn't he?
00:17:27He did Paul Monaghan, somebody who Ted knows extremely well too.
00:17:32Big tennis fan, isn't he, Paul, as well.
00:17:33But, yeah, that's...
00:17:37Do you know what?
00:17:38I just think he's luck of the draw.
00:17:39Do you go out and get a lap in and then...
00:17:42But, of course, there's a 45% less chance of a yellow now
00:17:45because we've lost a dozen runners.
00:17:48So, there's much...
00:17:50And the creme de la creme have got through in the fastest cars.
00:17:55So, there's less chance of tripping over a yellow.
00:17:59You get tyre degradation.
00:18:00But on your second lap, there's less fuel on board, as well.
00:18:04So, the strategy is trying to work out what's the slowest way
00:18:07or what's the fastest way.
00:18:09Even if the tyres are degrading,
00:18:11the fact that you've got less fuel on board, the car's lighter,
00:18:13can you still go faster on the lap?
00:18:15Either way, riding on board with Lando Norris,
00:18:17through that part of the track, Martin,
00:18:20where you say you never stop moving the steering wheel,
00:18:22I'm getting quite dizzy.
00:18:24I'm glad I'm only just doing this briefly
00:18:25rather than riding on board all the time.
00:18:27He hooked the apex up beautifully after the Anderson Bridge there.
00:18:30That one, too.
00:18:31A little bit of understair through the mid-corner.
00:18:34Now, he just eases it down the straight.
00:18:36I don't want to turn the steering wheel, too.
00:18:37I don't want to scrub any speed.
00:18:39This is probably the last decision he's got to make,
00:18:41is the braking point there.
00:18:43The McLaren riding the kerbs quite nicely,
00:18:46not risking too much against the wall.
00:18:48They're downshifting on the way in and then flooring it through the exits.
00:18:52Stay right, shortest run to the line.
00:18:54And Lando has found a second against his best SQ2 time
00:18:59in the medium compound tyres.
00:19:02And George Russell can't match it.
00:19:03He crosses the line, goes second fastest.
00:19:06It's improvement by about eight tenths.
00:19:08Lando improved by a second.
00:19:09Some will be the tyre, some will be the driver.
00:19:11It's a McLaren 1-2 as Oscar Piastri crosses the line
00:19:15just under two tenths down on his teammate.
00:19:18Antonelli can only be second row behind George Russell.
00:19:22So the drivers will be finding more time within themselves
00:19:26given they've done more laps now in qualifying
00:19:28and they've got more grip out there.
00:19:30Yeah, let's see if they get it.
00:19:31I'm pretty sure they'll get another lap in yet,
00:19:33although the tyres won't be boxed fresh.
00:19:35But the World Championship leader will be disappointed
00:19:38with that lap, I believe, in the 132s.
00:19:40Charles Leclerc in the middle sector
00:19:43goes quicker than any other driver.
00:19:46There's only a few hundredths in it
00:19:47between himself and Lando Norris.
00:19:49Charles Leclerc, whose last pole position in a sprint race,
00:19:52did come at a street circuit, Baku, in 2023.
00:19:57He's had a long time to wait
00:19:58as the man with 27 career Grand Prix poles to his name.
00:20:02Around the final couple of corners,
00:20:04Ferrari have been qualifying specialists over the years here.
00:20:08And Leclerc, I know it says P5,
00:20:10it isn't, it's P1.
00:20:12Goes to provisional pole.
00:20:15Just 19 milliseconds in it
00:20:17as whatever they were looking at at Max Verstappen's car
00:20:21has been fixed and he can now come out.
00:20:23And if there is track evolution,
00:20:27again, less cars means slightly less evolution.
00:20:30But Red Bull have played a different set of cards completely
00:20:34to McLaren and Ferrari.
00:20:37Well, one of the Ferraris.
00:20:38This is Lewis Hamilton now starting a flying lap.
00:20:42They gave Red Bull, didn't they, Max Verstappen?
00:20:45They had no choice to.
00:20:46Just one lap to get it done in SQ1
00:20:49and he produced the fastest time.
00:20:51Remember back for all of Lewis Hamilton's poles over the years.
00:20:55You know, some championship winning laps.
00:20:57One of them came here in 2018.
00:20:59A sensational pole lap.
00:21:01And when he hooks it up around here,
00:21:03he really does hook it up.
00:21:05And he's fastest in the first sector.
00:21:06Lewis then giving it absolutely everything
00:21:09in the early part of this lap.
00:21:11And tail end hanging out there.
00:21:15That's not actually a good thing
00:21:16because while you're going sideways
00:21:17and your wheels spinning,
00:21:18you're not going forwards.
00:21:20So you lose.
00:21:20And also, you don't want to flash the surface
00:21:23of these Formula One tyres up.
00:21:25The surface temperature, I mean.
00:21:27But on he goes.
00:21:29Let's have a look.
00:21:29Oh, another big slide then for Lewis Hamilton.
00:21:32He's really feisty on the throttle pedal this evening.
00:21:36And we'll see at the end of the straight
00:21:38if that's given him any payback.
00:21:40But he's definitely eager.
00:21:42And it's alright, isn't it?
00:21:44It's an alright middle sector.
00:21:45It matched the best middle sector
00:21:47that we've had so far from Charles Leclerc.
00:21:50Also from Lando Norris.
00:21:51But this is Lewis Hamilton in the groove.
00:21:53This is where he likes it.
00:21:56The back end stepping out occasionally.
00:21:57Then I'll correct it.
00:21:58Not a problem.
00:21:59I'll live on that edge
00:22:00if I've got the speed to go with it.
00:22:02Lewis Hamilton with a pole position this year
00:22:05at Silverstone in the sprint.
00:22:07Crosses the line and goes P3.
00:22:11Behind Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc.
00:22:13He's taken a lot out of those rear tyres, wasn't he?
00:22:15Through the lap.
00:22:16And I think they let him down a little bit
00:22:17in the closing stages.
00:22:20One of the great all-time qualifying laps
00:22:22was with Lewis Hamilton here, wasn't he?
00:22:24I can't remember which year, but...
00:22:262018.
00:22:26Superb.
00:22:27Yeah.
00:22:28So, yeah.
00:22:30One of the all-time great Q laps.
00:22:32But unfortunately, the rear tyres would not live
00:22:34with that amount of ambition.
00:22:36That will be Lewis Hamilton's lap
00:22:38for the final part of qualifying.
00:22:41His teammate Charles Leclerc going even faster
00:22:43through the first sector.
00:22:45Hamilton won't get to the line in time
00:22:46to start another lap here.
00:22:48Meanwhile, we're looking at 27-1
00:22:51for a good first sector.
00:22:52Max Verstappen has just done a 26-8.
00:22:55three tenths in his hands
00:22:56through the first part of the lap.
00:22:58And his teammate, Isaac Hadjar,
00:23:00is that three tenths back
00:23:01on the Dutch four-time world champion.
00:23:04We're watching Charles Leclerc now making his way
00:23:07across that Anderson bridge
00:23:08to the left-hander
00:23:09with George Russell locked up
00:23:11on the medium tyres.
00:23:13Leclerc getting it right
00:23:14and going very close to the wall on the exit.
00:23:16Yeah, he entered that corner
00:23:17a little bit tight, actually.
00:23:19And that's what made him run wide,
00:23:20which would cost him a bit of time
00:23:21down the next straight.
00:23:23But still a solid middle sector
00:23:26for Charles Leclerc.
00:23:27He looks in great form tonight.
00:23:29Solid middle sector for Max Verstappen too,
00:23:31although he might have dropped
00:23:32a tenth of a second during it.
00:23:34So Leclerc is pushing on.
00:23:36Max is living with the grip
00:23:38and it is nip and tuck
00:23:40between Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen.
00:23:43Leclerc crosses the line,
00:23:45extends his advantage out in front
00:23:47by nearly two tenths from Lando Norris.
00:23:50Can he keep hold of it?
00:23:51As Verstappen crosses the line,
00:23:52who was on pole last weekend at Sepang.
00:23:56He's on sprint pole here at the moment,
00:23:58here in Singapore.
00:24:00Isaac Hadjot goes off the track.
00:24:02That won't count his exceeded track limits.
00:24:04So he will come up with no time
00:24:06for this qualifying three for the sprints.
00:24:10And we're on board now with Lando Norris,
00:24:13who's got three tenths to try and make up
00:24:16in the first part of the lap.
00:24:18Got a tenth to make up now
00:24:19in the final part of the lap.
00:24:21Yeah, you can see the back end
00:24:22moving around a little bit
00:24:24as his tyres on this second attempt
00:24:26at a hot lap.
00:24:28Again, the front end very obedient over the kerbs.
00:24:31What has Lando got through these final two corners?
00:24:34And the line comes up very quickly.
00:24:36Is it a second sprint pole of the season?
00:24:38No, it's P3 for Lando Norris.
00:24:40He's still ahead then of Lewis Hamilton
00:24:42on the second row with him.
00:24:43What about Oscar Piastri?
00:24:45Hasn't out-qualified Lando in a sprint this season.
00:24:47He's got one more chance to do it,
00:24:49and he does it right at the last.
00:24:51Oscar Piastri moves up into P3
00:24:54and ahead of his teammates.
00:24:57George Russell takes it wide
00:24:58and goes on to the front row.
00:25:00It's Verstappen and Russell,
00:25:01but Antonelli wants to join them.
00:25:03Antonelli crosses the line only in P7.
00:25:08Disappointing qualifying
00:25:09for the World Championship leader.
00:25:12George Russell makes it on to the front row.
00:25:15And for the first time this season,
00:25:16Max Verstappen will be on the front row with him.
00:25:19And for the first time in a sprint this season,
00:25:22it's Max Verstappen on pole.
00:25:24Yeah, stunning lap from Max Verstappen.
00:25:26How many of those have we seen in the last few years?
00:25:29But Antonelli, Championship leader,
00:25:32I know it's the sprint, but P7,
00:25:35he'll be very, very disappointed with that.
00:25:37That is 11 career sprint poles for Max.
00:25:41Excellent.
00:25:41Nice job.
00:25:42Well, it's not done, guys.
00:25:44Well done.
00:25:44I'm sorry for the look nice to tell you.
00:25:47It's a good afternoon.
00:25:50He's getting used to this P1 malarkey.
00:25:53He's waiting a bit for it this season in terms of a win.
00:25:56And now the sprint pole comes his way.
00:25:5811 career sprint poles.
00:26:00For the first time this season,
00:26:01George Russell will have Max.
00:26:03You too.
00:26:04Nice job, Dan.
00:26:05How are you going to put them?
00:26:07Why not, George?
00:26:08Thanks.
00:26:11Sorry, Martin.
00:26:12I was going to say, for the first time this season,
00:26:13George Russell on the front row for a sprint and not on pole.
00:26:18So it's Max and George leading the way tomorrow night.
00:26:22That's tomorrow afternoon.
00:26:22Isaac Hadjard dropping down in the other Red Bull to P9
00:26:25with that track limits infringement that we saw crystal clear,
00:26:29wasn't it, coming out of the last corner.
00:26:31So he'll start ninth.
00:26:34And, yeah, McLaren's in there too.
00:26:36I tell you what, this bodes well.
00:26:38Bodes well.
00:26:39A for the sprint.
00:26:40B for qualifying tomorrow.
00:26:42That's going to be massive qualifying.
00:26:44Absolutely.
00:26:44Don't miss that one.
00:26:46First time he's ever been on pole in Singapore as well.
00:26:49For all his success here over the years in terms of podiums,
00:26:54where he's finished runner-up in the last two years and in 2018 too.
00:26:58Max has never won in Singapore
00:26:59and he's never been on pole in Singapore either.
00:27:02As he said earlier in the week,
00:27:03it's become a bit of a bogey track for him.
00:27:05And I'm sure he'd quite like to write that with a performance in the daylight.
00:27:10And you won't notice it because the lights will be on the track anyway,
00:27:13but in the daylight tomorrow.
00:27:15The sprint race starts at 5 o'clock local time.
00:27:22We wait for George to get out of the Mercedes,
00:27:27the one he can have a bit of fun with.
00:27:28In terms of being at the front, struggling to get out at the moment
00:27:32because he's got that engine penalty to carry through into the Grand Prix.
00:27:36Lewinsky sort of was in the middle of that strategy, wasn't he?
00:27:39He didn't get a second run.
00:27:41And I didn't imagine him end up P6 with that lap,
00:27:44but his rear tyres cried enough just towards the end.
00:27:48What I'm scratching my head about, Max went out later to do one lap.
00:27:55Yeah.
00:27:56So therefore had the best of the conditions you would imagine.
00:27:59Lewis, as you say, a bit in betwixt and in between,
00:28:03because he went out earlier, but then didn't have enough time to do another lap.
00:28:06Should Ferrari have left it later to do one lap,
00:28:10or brought out Lewis Hamilton earlier so he could have got two laps in.
00:28:14Yeah, they were kind of between the devil and the deep blue sea with that one, weren't they?
00:28:17But Max then, 1.6 seconds faster than he was in SQ2 on the mediums.
00:28:22So that tells you, Laurent said they thought about four tenths, four five tenths,
00:28:27plus they'll give it a bit more power, whatever.
00:28:30But that shows you the track evolution through that qualifying session.
00:28:34Hardly surprising.
00:28:35Street track, dusty, and the rubber being laid down.
00:28:38The fans will leave their seats and go off to a concert tonight.
00:28:41There are plenty of them for the spectators here in Singapore.
00:28:44Oscar Piastri, good performance from him to out-qualify Lando Norris
00:28:47in a sprint for the first time this season.
00:28:49Lewis Hamilton then ahead of Kimi Antonelli.
00:28:51Liam Lawson ahead of Hadjar and Gasly.
00:28:54That's your top ten.
00:28:55And David Coulthard is down in Park Fermi.
00:29:00Max Verstappen, our pole position winner for the sprint tomorrow.
00:29:04It was an elongated session.
00:29:06You waited, you had that one lap right at the end.
00:29:09Put us in the cockpit as always.
00:29:11It was pretty close out there.
00:29:13So it's close here in Singapore and also your lap itself.
00:29:17Like you're pushing as hard as you think is possible, close to the walls and places.
00:29:20But for sure, once we bolted on the soft tires, it felt like the car was coming alive a little
00:29:26bit more.
00:29:28But I did not expect this.
00:29:29So yeah, of course very happy to be first.
00:29:32Okay, so expectations after the one hour of practice was that you maybe wouldn't achieve the pole for this sprint.
00:29:39I mean, I think the last three races we have been, of course, a lot stronger.
00:29:44But of course this track still highlights a few little weaknesses in the car.
00:29:48But we managed to drive with them as well as possible.
00:29:51Okay, you've got sweat on your brow.
00:29:54Understandably, it's hot enough for us just wandering around.
00:29:57Again, if you can just explain to our audience the physical demands of being in the car here in Singapore.
00:30:03It's just like a sauna trying to do some exercise in it.
00:30:07So yeah, it's always very hot.
00:30:08You try to, you know, cool yourself as well as you can in between the runs as well.
00:30:13Because, I mean, the whole cockpit is hot.
00:30:14So your feet, of course your body, your head.
00:30:17And especially when you sit in the car stopping, it's like a heat soak.
00:30:20So yeah, it's never comfortable.
00:30:22But that's also, I think, quite unique about this place.
00:30:24And in a way, of course, we love it as well.
00:30:27Excellent. Well, Max, congratulations on your sprint pole position.
00:30:30Thank you.
00:30:34Well, well done, Max Verstappen.
00:30:36He is clearly enjoying his tour over here following that first win in Malaysia a week ago.
00:30:43And taken pole position by just over a tenth from George Russell.
00:30:48We know that George, of course, has got that penalty for the main race.
00:30:53But that's not the case for the sprint tomorrow.
00:30:55And we always like to see those two elbows out, don't we?
00:30:59There we go. Well done to Max.
00:31:02Another pole to his name.
00:31:03And this is what we've got coming up over the rest of the weekend.
00:31:14What a lovely warm reception.
00:31:16How much does that give you of those lifter springs?
00:31:19It does.
00:31:19It's always really nice coming to Asia.
00:31:21It does feel like one big family in Southeast Asia.
00:31:24And obviously, we've got Malaysian Grand Prix, we've got this weekend.
00:31:26You can tell it's loud as well.
00:31:31JB, the Marina Bay Circuit, a massive challenge for qualifying, isn't it?
00:31:35I always think of it as a real mental challenge as much as anything else over that one lap.
00:31:39Yeah, definitely.
00:31:40I mean, it is physical.
00:31:41It's unbelievably hot here, humid.
00:31:43But it's the mental aspect.
00:31:45Yes, one touch of the curve wrong, and you're in the wall.
00:31:50How are you mind managing the rest of this season?
00:31:54I have Bono, who has a lot of experiences on championships.
00:31:58He's always there to keep me calm.
00:32:01The conclusion is we've just got a performance.
00:32:06We're like a couple of evil puppeteers.
00:32:08Yes.
00:32:09I would honestly say I always race pretty freely.
00:32:12I'm asking him to redo his answer, because it wasn't very good.
00:32:15Are you happy with that answer?
00:32:17Do you want to...?
00:32:18Okay.
00:32:19I'm just checking.
00:32:20I thought that it was maybe a little bit, like, not positive.
00:32:27Didn't have a clue.
00:32:29You really didn't see more of that in qualifying.
00:32:31And the race has the details for tomorrow.
00:32:35On air for the sprint, 9 o'clock in the morning.
00:32:37On air for qualifying, 1 o'clock.
00:32:38Both of those on Sky Sports F1.
00:32:41And the same on Sunday on this channel, 11.30, with the race getting underway at 1 o'clock.
00:32:47The original night race.
00:32:51And it was Max Verstappen who, once again, showed that his Red Bull is enjoying the heat at the moment.
00:32:57This hasn't been a place that he's had much success at in the past.
00:33:01Never won here, but he's taken sprint poll reaction in a couple of moments' time.
00:33:17Welcome back, Max Verstappen.
00:33:20That is his 11th sprint poll.
00:33:22He extends his own all-time record.
00:33:26His first sprint front row of the season, though.
00:33:30Very cool, calm and collected in this heat.
00:33:33Yeah, did what he needed to do for a second week of running.
00:33:37And looking at a place where he's not been, let's face it.
00:33:40This has not been a circuit that Red Bull have particularly enjoyed in the past.
00:33:45Maybe it's a new set of rules and regulations.
00:33:47And that car is all of a sudden different.
00:33:49And that combination of Max on street circuits sometimes.
00:33:52It didn't always work out right.
00:33:54It's his 250th Grand Prix start this weekend.
00:33:57And he's never had a victory over here.
00:33:58So maybe he'll get a sprint victory tomorrow.
00:34:00But they look really, really quick out there.
00:34:02I mean, we saw a little bit of threat from the Ferraris, from George as well.
00:34:06Ultimately, Max went out there and, you know, did what he does best.
00:34:10He pulled something extra out of the bag just when it mattered.
00:34:13We were trying to build up a body of evidence that suggests that Red Bull are closing in on Mercedes.
00:34:19Look, as we said before the start of this, gone down a bit of a cul-de-sac, it seems,
00:34:25with the new upgrade.
00:34:26And certainly the half a second between George Russell and Kimi Antonelli would suggest that.
00:34:31But nonetheless, Max is there and he's already pounced since the summer break.
00:34:35Yeah.
00:34:35And I think the package is working.
00:34:37As we said, correlation is everything in this sport.
00:34:39It really is.
00:34:41And it's working.
00:34:42You know, I think they also have a lot of information from racing here.
00:34:45Red Bull have won many times around this track with Sebastian Vettel, just not with Max.
00:34:49So a lot of information there and they're putting it to good use because that was mighty by Max and
00:34:54Red Bull.
00:34:55Of course, the big question that nobody knows is that, you know, the car is going to work differently when
00:34:59it's a lot warmer for the sprint tomorrow.
00:35:02Well, likely they are.
00:35:03But the good thing is now that they've rolled out of the garages for that session there, they're locked up
00:35:08in park for many conditions until after the sprint race.
00:35:11So even if it does make a difference, it will impact everybody.
00:35:14Of course, what those differences might be could be slightly different between one car to the other.
00:35:18But yeah, it will be definitely hotter for them out there.
00:35:21Well, and they've never, they haven't done a long run yet.
00:35:23So they don't know how the car is going to feel.
00:35:25So they might be a little bit cautious at the start of the stint because there's no tire changing.
00:35:29It's just one set for the whole race.
00:35:30So I'm looking forward to seeing how that goes and how much deg we get.
00:35:35Exactly.
00:35:36Right.
00:35:36Should we go to the sky pad, Karoon.
00:35:38Are you there?
00:35:40Knock, knock.
00:35:41Hello, Simon.
00:35:42I'm here.
00:35:43What have you got for us?
00:35:45I was going to look at Max's lap because in free practice, I asked Laura Mechies, does he think the
00:35:50Red Bull is now a car for all tracks?
00:35:52You know, Baku, they were strong.
00:35:54Malaysia, they won.
00:35:55And it looks like on this evidence that they do have a car now that's going to work everywhere.
00:35:59Let's look at the lap itself.
00:36:00Down at turn one.
00:36:01He threw in a huge amount of speed just through that first apex there.
00:36:05Didn't pinch any of the inside curb.
00:36:07Pushed the understeer on.
00:36:09Eventually the car gripped up by that outside curb on the apex of turn two effectively.
00:36:14And then a nice run to slow it all down for turn three.
00:36:18Great traction and drivability from that Red Bull engine as well.
00:36:21Now watch turn five.
00:36:23Max really aggressive with that first steering input.
00:36:26Then starts to open up the wheel.
00:36:28Doesn't actually get as close to the wall as we've seen from some other drivers.
00:36:32But gets a nice clean run onto the fastest straight off the track.
00:36:37Get up to turn seven.
00:36:38And really good under braking.
00:36:40We've seen a lot of drivers struggling with the bumps and lockups there.
00:36:43But the Red Bull clearly dialed in well.
00:36:45Turn eight as well.
00:36:46Nice slow corner.
00:36:47Good rotation.
00:36:49Up to turn nine.
00:36:50Opens up the wheel really close to the wall on the outside there.
00:36:54Now watch the commitment as he gets into turns ten.
00:36:57And then across to the left-hand side through the chicane.
00:37:00This for me.
00:37:01Just watch here.
00:37:02Max's hands.
00:37:03He goes right.
00:37:04Then keeps turning to open up this left-hand apex.
00:37:07Yesterday when Jensen and I went around the track.
00:37:09We were talking about how this curb can really upset the car.
00:37:12But he actually pinches a little bit of it.
00:37:14And the car's riding it well.
00:37:16And the reason I've highlighted this is I've seen on various parts of the track.
00:37:20The Red Bull seems to be much better on the curbs.
00:37:22And we know in the last couple of years that's been something that the drivers have really complained about.
00:37:28So on a bumpy track with curbs, they will be encouraged that the car is working well.
00:37:34And clearly the updates are doing their business.
00:37:36And we're looking at this down into turn 14.
00:37:40Max gets a really good run.
00:37:42Again, you can see super close to the wall up there on the left-hand side.
00:37:45Watch the braking zone for turn 16 and the curb usage for the 16-17 chicane.
00:37:51Let's just slow this down here.
00:37:52And he doesn't actually attack that first right-hand curb.
00:37:56And then again, just straddles the white line on the exit pit there.
00:38:00But right up against the wall on this yellow smooth bit of concrete at that point.
00:38:06And then charges up to the final corner.
00:38:08Brilliant commitment and bravery for Max there.
00:38:11Fifth gear throws it in and gets a great run up to the line.
00:38:14Now, we believe that Max and Lewis have been called to the stewards
00:38:17because Max overtook Lewis Hamilton under a yellow flag.
00:38:21Now, we don't have the on-board for this.
00:38:23But I will play you the off-board to show you, first of all, what happens here.
00:38:27So watch this.
00:38:28So Max comes out of turn 7, and this is where we saw the debris left by Perez's car.
00:38:35And as the camera pans around, you will see in a moment there the yellow panel.
00:38:42And we'll just play along.
00:38:43You can see.
00:38:44And to me, that looks like a single flashing yellow.
00:38:48So that's a single yellow.
00:38:49And he has clearly gone past Lewis.
00:38:52There's the debris there on the side of the track.
00:38:56And on the yellows, he has passed it.
00:38:58So Max has been called to the stewards.
00:38:59Now, I've had a quick look at the FIA penalty guidelines.
00:39:03And let's bear in mind, these are guidelines.
00:39:04The stewards don't have to do this.
00:39:06They have different ways to look at this in different cameras
00:39:09and also take the evidence from the driver.
00:39:11But in the penalty guidelines, that does say it's a five-place grid penalty
00:39:15for overtaking under single yellows in qualifying.
00:39:18So we'll see what Max's defense is and if the stewards let him off the hook.
00:39:23Can I come back to you, Karin, on that one?
00:39:25I think Jensen was just saying, do you think that's a penalty?
00:39:28No.
00:39:29He looks like he actually overtakes Lewis before the yellow.
00:39:33Is that the angle?
00:39:34Shall we play it again?
00:39:35Yeah, can we see the angle?
00:39:35I was going to say, unfortunately, JB, we've only got the off-board.
00:39:39But let's play it again.
00:39:40And as he comes past, let's go.
00:39:44I mean, he's underneath the panel as he goes past him.
00:39:47There's the yellow.
00:39:48So I'd say he's at the panel.
00:39:51Yeah.
00:39:52It'd be interesting to see if you already had the yellow on the dash
00:39:55before that point, right?
00:39:56There's also the other point of that Lewis is backed off and pulled over.
00:40:00Yeah.
00:40:01To let him past, obviously, because he was on a slow lap.
00:40:05Yeah, exactly.
00:40:06I think that that is probably going to be Max's defense, isn't it?
00:40:09It's clearly Lewis has moved offline to the middle of the track and allowed Max past.
00:40:15So, Jensen, you and I have been in the stewards group.
00:40:18That's going to be the defense, isn't it?
00:40:19It's clearly the driver in front has indicated that he's going slowly and is letting me pass.
00:40:24So we'll see what the stewards say.
00:40:26As I say, they have guidelines for these things.
00:40:29It's not regulation.
00:40:30The guidelines that the stewards could apply should they see fit.
00:40:33And just one more, Karun.
00:40:34You talked about those extra cameras.
00:40:36It's not just the FOM track cameras.
00:40:38The FIA have their own ones.
00:40:40So they're almost like CCTV cameras around the track.
00:40:44And there's plenty of them.
00:40:46But that's the ones that none of the broadcasters get access to, right?
00:40:50That's right.
00:40:51And, you know, because there were issues with the onboard cameras, we don't have.
00:40:56So the point is, if the panel came on just at this point, then, you know, is it too late
00:41:04for it to be in Max's line of sight?
00:41:06To Naomi's point, did he have it on the dash earlier?
00:41:08We haven't got that because, as I said, we don't have the onboard to be able to verify that.
00:41:12So all I can show you is what I've got.
00:41:15And we'll see what the stewards do with what they've got.
00:41:18Yes. Okay. Thank you for the moment.
00:41:20We'll come back to you, Karun, forthwith.
00:41:22But in the meantime, let's hear from both of the Mercedes drivers, starting with George Russell.
00:41:28Well, they all seem to come together for you late on there, George.
00:41:32How did you build momentum through those rounds of sprint qualifying today?
00:41:37I mean, we've seen competitive all day, to be honest, from the first laps in FP1.
00:41:41We obviously topped the timesheets there.
00:41:44We knew Max was fast and he went on a slightly different strategy to us in Q3 just in the
00:41:49one lap.
00:41:50Who knows what was best, but pretty satisfied with the P2.
00:41:55How do you think things will play out tomorrow?
00:41:58And could you take us inside the team?
00:41:59There's been a lot of talk about the upgrade, maybe this being an outlier track,
00:42:03maybe not a good place to decide whether or not it's working.
00:42:06You've obviously gone back to the older parts.
00:42:09Well, we can definitely confirm the old one is not bad.
00:42:16Let's see what tomorrow brings with Kimi on the upgrade.
00:42:20As a team, there's still nothing telling us that it isn't working.
00:42:25But it's all driven by the stopwatch and the stopwatch has not been great for the upgrade yet.
00:42:32So let's see and maybe tomorrow is a different day.
00:42:36Have you got to get ahead at the start?
00:42:37Just briefly, is that the one chance to win this?
00:42:39Yeah, it's going to be very challenging.
00:42:41The grip left and right here is a big difference.
00:42:43You know, the drivers on the pole side last year had a big advantage.
00:42:47So it's probably going to be trying to maintain P2.
00:42:50I know Max is under investigation for the yellow, so let's see.
00:42:53Thanks, George. Thank you.
00:42:57Can you look really tough out there to get lap time out the car?
00:42:59Are you surprised at just how difficult it was?
00:43:03Yes and no, to be fair.
00:43:05Already the FP1 I was struggling and, yeah, still a lot to understand about this package.
00:43:13Really, the car is very difficult, very unpredictable and very difficult to put a lap together.
00:43:19So, yeah, it's a shame because I was coming with high hopes, but so far it's been very difficult.
00:43:27Given the fact that obviously the older spec looks like the faster one at the minute, how difficult do you
00:43:31think the sprint's going to be in the rest of the weekend on the newest spec?
00:43:33Yeah, I think it's going to be a difficult weekend unless we can pull something out tomorrow.
00:43:39But other than that, it's going to be very tricky.
00:43:43I don't really see, you know, where we can find seven tenths.
00:43:47But you never know.
00:43:49Maybe, you know, tonight the Bono, you know, the engineer, we're going to find something in the car.
00:43:55And for sure I'm going to try to improve a little bit of driving.
00:43:58And then let's see, we'll see tomorrow where we end up.
00:44:02Well, well, well, who would have predicted this?
00:44:05But George was the one.
00:44:06He said, he suggested, look, I just want to go back.
00:44:09Old spec, please, with the old engine.
00:44:12Yes.
00:44:13And I think that that was possibly a wise decision.
00:44:15I don't think Mercedes can rule out their new upgrades yet.
00:44:18I think obviously Malaysia was one set of circumstances.
00:44:21High deg there.
00:44:22They weren't able to extract the benefits of their upgrade.
00:44:24And then, you know, there's a question of stability as well.
00:44:27They're saying that this new upgrade creates a little bit more instability in the car.
00:44:31And on a track like this, particularly when you've only got one practice session,
00:44:35instability is not what you want in the car.
00:44:37You want something that generates confidence in the driver.
00:44:39And George already won with it in Baku.
00:44:42So I can understand why he would go back to that.
00:44:44I mean, that's when you look at it.
00:44:45They've been working with that chassis, that kind of set up as a spokesman from Mercedes said
00:44:51for what, the Nyon 16 races.
00:44:52So they've worked with it. They developed it.
00:44:54They know how to set it up.
00:44:56And that's the thing that he was relying on, the fact that they knew it so well,
00:45:00whereas the other one was unstable, particularly in the setup.
00:45:04So it didn't work as well.
00:45:05It's really tricky with aero packages because they have to work in a straight line,
00:45:09but they also have to work at yaw and different yaw angles as well,
00:45:12which will all be tested in the wind tunnel.
00:45:14But sometimes it just doesn't click with a driver.
00:45:16As you said, if they don't have confidence in the car,
00:45:18they can't find the limit of the car.
00:45:21So, yeah, I mean, even sometimes you could have less downforce with a package,
00:45:25but it's more drivable, gives you confidence and you can push that harder.
00:45:28And it's obviously why George is finding confidence in it.
00:45:32OK, we're going to take a short break on the other side of that.
00:45:35We'll get the low down from Ferrari.
00:45:38Charles Leclerc was two and a half tenths off.
00:45:41Max Verstappen and Lewis, three paces time.
00:45:54Charles Leclerc, P3 matches his best sprint qualifying of the year,
00:45:59which was Zanvoort and the Ferrari teammates tie 3-3 in sprint qualifying battle this year.
00:46:04Let's hear from the both.
00:46:06Charles, you look so quick on the medium in that second part of quali.
00:46:09Just what happened with the car, that feeling when you put on the soft in the second part?
00:46:13Not much. I think I gained the lap time that we had to gain.
00:46:17The others had a bit of a different plan.
00:46:19I think they did two cool down laps.
00:46:21We only did one cool down lap, so...
00:46:24But honestly, I don't think it's...
00:46:26Yeah, it shouldn't be an excuse.
00:46:27I think the row pace since three, four races, we've lost a little bit of our row performance.
00:46:33And yeah, we're just not fast enough to fight with them just yet.
00:46:37But still, I feel like there's potential in the car.
00:46:40And for tomorrow, maybe with some fine tunings, we can be there or thereabouts for fighting for pole.
00:46:45So it's not too bad, but we are missing a little bit.
00:46:48Yeah, because I was going to say, considering all of that, you're still right in the mix, aren't you, P3,
00:46:52for the sprint first, but also, like you said, for quali later on tomorrow.
00:46:56Yeah, I mean, it's not a bad position to start on.
00:46:59But on a track like this, you really want to be starting on P1.
00:47:03So overtaking is going to be very difficult.
00:47:07So we'll see.
00:47:07But at the end of the day, it's only the sprint race.
00:47:09And tomorrow we, yeah, we'll have to do the job tomorrow.
00:47:14Hey, Lewis, that first sector, that lightning crit, that lap on the outside looked great.
00:47:18I know it wasn't the lap time that you wanted.
00:47:20So just talk me through where you think it kind of went away as that lap went out.
00:47:29It was looking good in Q1 and Q2, and then I don't really know where it went away.
00:47:36We did a slightly different round plan to the others.
00:47:40It was my choice, and I think it got that wrong.
00:47:46But ultimately, just the car was very oversteery on that lap.
00:47:49I don't know if the rears were not ready or if they were overheating.
00:47:53It was difficult to say, but it was very, very snappy oversteery,
00:47:56and it just wasn't a good lap overall.
00:47:57Because on the mediums, you looked really comfortable, didn't you?
00:47:59Well, at least it looked like that was the case.
00:48:01Yeah, the mediums was good.
00:48:04Yeah, just much different on the soft.
00:48:06Lots of grip, but only on the front and not at the rear.
00:48:11Could be balance, but ultimately just, yeah.
00:48:15Obviously, I had the pace in the first two sessions,
00:48:17and then all of a sudden I just couldn't pull.
00:48:19I didn't have the grip on the rear for some reason on that last half,
00:48:23so here's what it is.
00:48:24All right, thanks, Lewis.
00:48:26And this is a track where you need grip on the rear.
00:48:29I mean, coming out there, again, not happy with the way his car is set up.
00:48:32You can always read into Lewis's body language on that one, can't you?
00:48:35Yeah, you can.
00:48:35And, you know, he's been so strong in qualifying this year, the last few races.
00:48:40It did look like he was very aggressive on the throttle,
00:48:43but maybe it was because there was oversteer it looked that way.
00:48:46But as soon as you do that once around here, you overheat those rears,
00:48:49the temperature really never comes down.
00:48:51Two bites at the cherry, though, on set-up.
00:48:54Inter-Park Fermi, out of Park Fermi, again, for qualifying in the race.
00:48:59And it's what I suppose they can learn from the information that they gather
00:49:03over the next couple of sessions.
00:49:04Yeah, but I don't think it's as bad as it looks on paper.
00:49:08I mean, he had two pretty decent first...
00:49:10The first sector and the second sector were pretty decent.
00:49:12He lost about three tenths in the third sector, as he was explaining there,
00:49:15probably overheated the tyres, and then wasn't able to keep together.
00:49:19But then he didn't have enough time to go for a second run as most of the others did.
00:49:23So maybe there's an element of the warm-up for the medium compound needed to be different
00:49:27to get the tyre in the optimum window, but they did have softs on for free practice.
00:49:31So it's interesting that he struggled as much on the soft,
00:49:34but I don't think it's as bad as it looks on paper.
00:49:36I think it can be turned around, for sure.
00:49:38I mean, this can all turn around.
00:49:39I mean, usually when you're looking at teams like Red Bull, very good at this,
00:49:43very good at working out how to get it right for qualifying and the race,
00:49:47if it's not gone right in sprint qualifying in the sprint.
00:49:51Yeah, turning it around.
00:49:51Because they're probably the team that come out of the box least competitive
00:49:55compared to the other front runners.
00:49:58But then they turn it around throughout the weekend.
00:50:00OK, what about the McLarens, the meat in a Ferrari sandwich?
00:50:05Oscar Piastri fourth, Lando Norris in fifth.
00:50:08Well, Oscar, this is the second row.
00:50:10How satisfied were you with the way you were able to deliver at the end of SQ3?
00:50:17Yeah, pretty happy there. I think that was more or less what we could have done.
00:50:21You know, it's very, very tricky on a sprint weekend to get all the lap time out of the car
00:50:25here.
00:50:27But no, I felt like on the soft things came alive a lot more struggling on the medium.
00:50:31And then once we put the soft on, I felt pretty happy.
00:50:33So yeah, not a bad effort.
00:50:36Any parts of the track in particular has been a focus for you to, I mean, turns two and three,
00:50:41you were talking a lot about early on in the day.
00:50:43Yeah, I was struggling with a few things in the car through there.
00:50:48It was a little bit better now.
00:50:49But yeah, I think just the general feeling of the car, you know, it's not any different to what it
00:50:55normally is.
00:50:56You know, you've got to really wring its neck to be quick.
00:50:59And yeah, once we added a bit more gripping with the soft, it was a bit better.
00:51:03But yeah, still still a challenge.
00:51:06Thanks, Oscar. Thank you.
00:51:08Well, how do you assess that today?
00:51:10Obviously, the track continued to ramp up.
00:51:13Did you not quite maybe get the best of conditions ultimately?
00:51:16What do you think?
00:51:17No, I don't think that's the reason.
00:51:18I just don't think I put together a very good lap.
00:51:20So that was all. No excuse.
00:51:24And in terms of how the car has felt, obviously, we were looking for a solution to that fuel injection
00:51:28problem.
00:51:30Are you happy?
00:51:31I know this isn't a power dominated track, but that's been sorted out looking ahead to tomorrow.
00:51:36Yeah, I think so.
00:51:37From what I've seen so far, I don't know everything just yet.
00:51:40To be honest, the guys are still looking into it and it's been a busy morning, a busy day.
00:51:44But no, a lot of things seem good.
00:51:46We seem closer as a team.
00:51:49Just simply, I didn't do a good enough job.
00:51:50Thank you.
00:51:52Yeah, he's not been blaming the team at any point over the last couple of weeks.
00:51:57He's been saying, look, it's an unfortunate thing.
00:51:59We've had an issue with the injection.
00:52:00It looks like potentially sorted out there.
00:52:03So some crumbs of comfort for Lando.
00:52:05Yes.
00:52:05And I think that he's probably not pointing any fingers because he's seen the team doing everything they possibly can
00:52:11to investigate the situation and try to fix it.
00:52:13So all the efforts that were put into it.
00:52:15But I think, again, these cars have been so complex all year long.
00:52:18We've seen situations similar to this, maybe not fuel related.
00:52:22But with George and Spa, we saw something similar where they couldn't quite put their finger on what was going
00:52:27on with this car.
00:52:27So it's unfortunate, but at least they've turned it around.
00:52:30Because they're so complicated.
00:52:31It seems to be happening a lot more this year, inconsistency between the cars running in the same engine.
00:52:37So, yeah, it's a tough one.
00:52:38It's a tough pill to swallow.
00:52:40But I'm glad they've sorted it out.
00:52:41Yes, right.
00:52:42OK, let's finish on something that happened in Q1.
00:52:46You remember there was a delay at the end of SQ1 and then SQ2 as well after the red flag.
00:52:52And there are a few drivers complaining that they weren't getting the overtake mode, not getting the same amount of
00:52:59power as the others.
00:53:00One of those was Carlos Sainz.
00:53:01This is just first of all, as he finished qualifying plum last.
00:53:05Hear what he's had to say.
00:53:08Well, Carlos, I was expecting it to be a tough weekend.
00:53:10I didn't think it was going to be that tough out there.
00:53:12Were you surprised with what happened?
00:53:13Unfortunately, we had a really poor lap there.
00:53:16We only caught one lap.
00:53:18And we had some issues with the brakes in FP1.
00:53:21We had to change them for FP1.
00:53:23We were having some brakes issues still.
00:53:26And, yeah, I had a few lockups struggling a lot with that and with the tires.
00:53:30But on top of that, half of the cars did the lap with half a second quicker engine than the
00:53:37others.
00:53:37There was another software issue with the cars this time around and we were on the bad end of it.
00:53:43And for whatever reason, the FIA, like in Malaysia, didn't decide to do sport iniquity.
00:53:49And we're happy to do half of the cars in quality with a higher power than the other half of
00:53:55the cars.
00:53:55So a bit confused why the sport keeps doing different things depending on who is out in Q1 or who
00:54:01is out in lap one.
00:54:02Well, I'm sorry to hear that it kind of worked out that way.
00:54:05In terms of the brakes, though, did it feel any better when you had it in the second one after
00:54:08those changes you made?
00:54:09Well, I mean, first of all, we did the whole lap with half a second less power than any other
00:54:14lap of the weekend.
00:54:14So that's never going to help.
00:54:16But with all the issues that we had on the brakes and tires in that quality, we would have always
00:54:23struggled to get through.
00:54:25So Carlos Sainz clearly very annoyed and a strong statement there just saying, you know, if we'd seen a Mercedes,
00:54:32a Red Bull or Ferrari or whoever down in that bottom six, maybe there would have been more of a
00:54:37fuss made.
00:54:38I actually spoke to Lawrence Stroll on this.
00:54:40Just to quote you on it, I said, you know, was Lance affected by that?
00:54:43He said, yes, he didn't have overtake mode and he lost about half a second, a point six of a
00:54:48second.
00:54:48I just want to read you a statement from the FIA with regards to this.
00:54:52They're saying during the first period of sprint qualifying, there was a human error in race control unrelated to the
00:54:58timing issue also encountered in SQ1.
00:55:01This issue in question meant overtake mode was not available after the red flag period during SQ1, when it became
00:55:08apparent that overtake mode was not active after the restart.
00:55:12It was then activated for a period of 27 seconds before being deactivated again.
00:55:17The FIA acknowledges that this unfortunate human error had an impact on the performance of certain cars based on the
00:55:25timing of their run and their position around the lap.
00:55:28The second and third periods of sprint qualifying were not affected.
00:55:32First one's work. Let's go to Karuna on this one.
00:55:34Perhaps you can put that in layman's terms for us.
00:55:38Either way, after what happened in Malaysia, I can't imagine that this is what the FIA would have wanted or
00:55:44needed.
00:55:46Yes, I think first of all, we should establish there were two different issues.
00:55:49What was Malaysia was a technical issue to do with the configuration of the power units.
00:55:53This was, as they've come out and admitted, a human error.
00:55:57So from what I understand, I've spoken to a couple of sporting directors here and Aston Martin, you mentioned Lauren
00:56:02Stroll.
00:56:03Not happy because they believe that Lance would have got through into SQ2 if he didn't have that disadvantage.
00:56:12So from what I understand, the cars all had the full power mode.
00:56:17Then when the red flag happened, something in the system effectively reset it so they didn't.
00:56:23And it sounds like there had to be a manual method in terms of re-enabling it.
00:56:28That just didn't happen for a period of time.
00:56:31So when the cars went back out of the pits, Andy Stevenson from Aston Martin was saying to me, his
00:56:36drivers were straight on the radio saying we have no power, we have no power.
00:56:39And then it got re-enabled for a period of time.
00:56:43And so it skewed the picture in their opinion for teams like them.
00:56:48I think Carlos' point about, at the end of the day, when you look at timesheets, you could say, well,
00:56:53the top teams got through as expected and none of the heavy hitters got out.
00:56:56But I think the question is around sporting fairness across all the 11 teams.
00:57:01Now, I don't believe Aston Martin are going to protest this.
00:57:05I did ask him the question, Andy said there's still a 30-minute window, which I think ends in about
00:57:1212 or 13 minutes' time.
00:57:14I don't believe they're going to protest it.
00:57:16However, let's say they protest it and they won, then it's a whole other can of worms.
00:57:20So, yeah, at the moment there are certainly teams in the bottom half of the grid.
00:57:24We heard Carlos, Aston, a couple of others who feel they have been disadvantaged by this.
00:57:29I did ask Lawrence Stroll on that point, are you going to protest it?
00:57:33He said, no, the reason for that was it's sprint qualifying.
00:57:37But, I mean, I suppose the thing is here, let's bring in Ted.
00:57:40They weren't the only team affected.
00:57:41There were a number of teams up and down the grid.
00:57:43On my clip, weren't they?
00:57:44Yes, I've been going up.
00:57:45Hello, Simon.
00:57:46Hello, Jamie.
00:57:46Hello, Jensen.
00:57:47Yes, unfortunate human error from the FIA.
00:57:49Not the first time we've heard that.
00:57:51This time, I mean, as far as Aston Martin is concerned, he was just talking about them.
00:57:55Their sporting director, Andy Stevenson, is still up with race control.
00:57:58They just want to understand what happened here today.
00:58:00They don't believe that anyone was doing their qualifying lap and then didn't have the extra half a megajoule available.
00:58:07What it's concerning about is the tyre preparation on the outlap.
00:58:11That's what lots of people, all the drivers or most of the drivers were on the radio saying,
00:58:15we've got no power.
00:58:16So they can't do, they couldn't do the outlap they wanted to do.
00:58:19And of course, that skews everything else.
00:58:21That skews all the rest of the computations they've done because they expected to have that extra power
00:58:25when they were going to have it before the FIA saying that they made a human error.
00:58:30So that's what we're talking about.
00:58:31Aston Martin aren't making a protest.
00:58:33They do want to understand what's going on.
00:58:34They say, and I think Lawrence Stroll probably said to you, easiest thing would have been to stop the session,
00:58:38say let's do that all again and then let's see what happens.
00:58:42But of course, then you've used your tyres by that time and that's not going to be possible.
00:58:46So that's where we are at the moment.
00:58:48An honest mistake, it seems, an honest explanation from the FIA as well.
00:58:52But the likes of Carlos Sainz, Lawrence Stroll and I think the Audis and also Alex Albon might say,
00:58:58even though they're not saying it on the record, it costs them potentially a place in sprint qualifying too as
00:59:03well.
00:59:04Just to get onto the existential point, if you'd like, of what Carlos was saying,
00:59:08you know, the fact is that, yes, maybe it is the kind of most of the normal six that go
00:59:12out.
00:59:12You could argue without Arvid Lindblad as well, because he's been doing particularly well in getting into Q3 a lot.
00:59:18If it had been a Ferrari down there, if it had been one of the big teams down there,
00:59:21then would this be, I don't know, a different story?
00:59:25I suppose the point is it shouldn't matter, right?
00:59:28It shouldn't matter.
00:59:28It doesn't matter who's got out, who hasn't.
00:59:31If it's affected someone, then it isn't fair.
00:59:34I guess the most important question is at which point did the FIA figure out that this issue had happened
00:59:38and that it had impacted people?
00:59:40Because we did have that sort of break between SQ1 and SQ2, a delay,
00:59:44where I wondered if they'd already noticed that.
00:59:46But as Ted points out, what do you do?
00:59:48You know, it's kind of like unprecedented territory.
00:59:50Do you reset everything?
00:59:52And then what happens with the tires?
00:59:53Do they have other tires that are ready to go?
00:59:55And then Pirelli allocate more tires for the rest of the weekend?
00:59:59I mean, it's a mess, isn't it?
01:00:00It would be a mess if they had to do that.
01:00:01Tedso?
01:00:02Yeah, I understand the frustration from everyone that didn't have the full power,
01:00:06because, you know, we all turn up here.
01:00:08They're working really hard, you know, doing everything behind the scenes to get these cars ready,
01:00:13thinking that they have equal treatment.
01:00:14So it's tough.
01:00:16It's frustrating.
01:00:17And, yes, it is sprint qualifying, but it's still sprint qualifying.
01:00:21It's still something.
01:00:22The other thing I'm picking up from some other teams,
01:00:23Ferrari expect Max Verstappen to get the penalty for the yellow flag incident.
01:00:28They do.
01:00:28They do expect, Ferrari say that they don't think there's any way Max is going to be able to keep
01:00:32it.
01:00:32This is them on the way to the stewards now.
01:00:34So keep across things online, if you can, and on Sky Sports News for the outcome of that one.
01:00:43But as I said, they've got more cameras available.
01:00:45Either way, you know, if it does that, it's George Russell on sprint pole.
01:00:50So let's see, I suppose.
01:00:52We can only wait and see the outcome of that.
01:00:54But as we know, track position is very, very important here.
01:00:57It is.
01:00:57But I think even if George is in second, you know, looking at the start comparison between those two cars,
01:01:03he's probably got a good, you know, he's got a good chance of fighting Max into turn one.
01:01:06It would definitely make for more excitement at turn one, I think, if Max stayed on pole.
01:01:11If he has a start like he had in Malaysia, he'll be more than fine.
01:01:14But I just want to say, if he, if, and I don't wish it on Max,
01:01:17but I just want to say, if he does get it, then I guess I was right, Jenson.
01:01:21You said Norris.
01:01:22I said Russell.
01:01:24But Verstappen was on pole, wasn't he?
01:01:26Well done, Naomi.
01:01:26Right, there we go.
01:01:27Back for the sprint in the daylight.
01:01:29First ever one here tomorrow morning.
01:01:32And then for qualifying later when the sun sets again.
01:01:36So there we are.
01:01:37Max Verstappen is on sprint pole for the moment.
01:01:41But we await the outcome of that Stuart's inquiry.
01:01:45We'll see you tomorrow.
01:01:46He's all here.
01:01:46Bye for now.
01:01:56You'll see a little bit of the sun.