Charles Leclerc (Ferrari/2nd): How pole was lost to Max Verstappen

A strong starting position for Charles Leclerc ahead of the Singapore Night Grand Prix: the 28-year-old Monegasque secured second place on the grid, with only Max Verstappen performing better in qualifying at Marina Bay.

Leclerc missed out on his 28th Formula 1 pole (and his first since Hungary 2025) by just 54 thousandths! The Ferrari driver is convinced that he might have been able to achieve more in this qualifying session.

The nine-time Grand Prix winner said, after narrowly missing out on his third Singapore pole position following those in 2019 and 2022: “In the end, I managed to put together a good lap, but I’d struggled a lot with that earlier in Q1 and Q2. The car was pulling to one side under braking, which is quite uncomfortable on a track like this.”

“The potential was there to take pole today. But ultimately, Max simply did a better job.”

“I was happy with the car on Friday and only made minor adjustments for today. Looking back now, we could have got a bit more out of it with the wing settings. But that’s not to take anything away from Max’s fine performance.”

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Statistically speaking, how important is pole position in Singapore? 11 of the 16 Singapore Grands Prix to date have been won from pole position, 12 by drivers on the front row of the grid.

But on 11 October, Leclerc will have just 180 metres to snatch the lead from Verstappen after the start of the Singapore Grand Prix – that’s incredibly short. What’s more, in Singapore, the side of the track for drivers in grid positions 2, 4, 6, 8 and so on is often less favourable, as it’s dirtier.

What does give Leclerc hope, however, is that Max Verstappen has often got off to a poor start this year; for instance, he lost the lead to George Russell immediately after the start of the sprint race.