@Charles_Leclerc claims stunning #SingaporeGP pole. #F1

Leclerc claims stunning Singapore GP pole

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc clinched a surprising third consecutive pole position at the Singapore Grand Prix after outpacing Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton by 0.191 seconds.

The Scuderia’s aerodynamic upgrades for it’s SF90 racers gave it a significant boost around the Marina Bay Street Circuit, which the team did not expect would suit it, as Sebastian Vettel set the early pace in the initial Q3 runs.

But Vettel’s final attempt however, was messy and saw the German abandon his flyer to return to the pits, meaning team-mate Leclerc needed to improve to surpass Vettel’s benchmark.

After his flyer, Leclerc reported over the radio that he lost control three times on his hot lap, in what was an impressive charging performance.

Vettel’s failed second attempt allowed Mercedes’ Hamilton to snatch second place on his last lap, with Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen qualifying fourth and nearly four tenths behind Vettel.

The other Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas rounded out the top five in-front of Alexander Albon’s sixth-placed Red Bull, with both unable to match their respective team-mates.

McLaren ended the best of the rest, qualifying in seventh with Carlos Sainz ahead of Renault’s eighth-placed Daniel Ricciardo.

Ricciardo however, was later disqualified from qualifying after it was discovered that the Australian was found to have exceeded his MGU-K (Motor Generator Unit-Kinetic) power limit in the first qualifying stage.

You can read more about it at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.ricciardo-referred-to-the-stewards-for-exceeding-power-usage-in-qualifying.wJ3sPDbfCFySenaqgM9bp.html

Ricciardo will therefore start at the back of the pack.

The second Renault R.S.19 of Nico Hulkenberg was ninth and 0.065 faster than McLaren’s Lando Norris who completed the top ten qualifiers.

Racing Point’s Sergio Perez moved up to 11th in the second qualifying stage but narrowly missed out on knocking out Hulkenberg to claim a Q3 appearance by only four hundredths of a second.

Perez however was hit with a five-grid placed penalty due to a gearbox change after suffering damage to his RP19 racer during FP3, meaning the Mexican will start in 15th.

Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi and Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly could not improve on their final best efforts as the pairing wound up 12th and 13th respectively but both comfortably within Perez’s time.

Gasly reported over the team radio that he was having issues with the rear of his Honda-powered STR14 after completing his final flyer, where he touched the wall.

The other Alfa Romeo Racing C38 of Kimi Raikkonen qualified in 14th after posting his quick time on his second attempt, with the 2007 World Champion snagging the wall with both wheels on his left-hand side during his first hot lap.

Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen was the slowest of the runners in the second qualifying stage, with the Dane lapping eight-tenths behind the aforementioned Raikkonen.

Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat was the fastest of the eliminatees in Q1 taking 16th after the Russian failed to improve on his effort set on the initial runs.

Kvyat was up in sector one, but lost time throughout the rest of the lap meaning he was unable to recover from Perez demoting him into the elimination zone – although the Russian was narrowly 0.015 seconds slower than Magnussen, who made it through the first qualifying stage.

Racing Point’s Lance Stroll took 17th after only gaining 0.209 seconds on his final attempt after several light touches on the walls, which was enough to keep him ahead of 18th-placed Haas of Romain Grosjean.

ROKiT Williams Racing’s George Russell had to abandon his final flyer after running wide at the turn seven exit, although the reigning FIA Formula 2 Champion’s initial run was plenty to keep him 19th and in-front of team-mate Robert Kubica by three-tenths.

Kubica did not also have a final attempt after just missing out on starting his hot lap before the chequered flag waved.

The Top Three

Pole Position – Charles Leclerc, #16, Scuderia Ferrari, SF90: “Coming to Singapore, we expected to have a difficult weekend. I struggled with the car yesterday and was not satisfied with my driving. I knew that there was more to extract and focused on the improvements I had to make on myself to do a better job today. Pole felt out of reach but this morning, the car came alive and felt great. The team in our factory in Maranello did an incredible job to make this result possible by giving us the high-downforce package we need on this track. The lap itself was not perfect. I made some mistakes and there were some close calls. To finish it like this just feels amazing. I have to keep my head down now and stay focused. It is difficult to overtake here, so the start will be the most important part of the race for me. I hope it will be an exciting one.”

2nd – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W10 EQ Power+: “I don’t think we were expecting the Ferraris to be so quick today, they’ve clearly made some improvements to their car and it’s working really well, so fair play to them. We had a deficit after the first run in Q3 and I was sitting in the garage thinking “Oh my God, it’s a second – where am I going to find a second?” But all you can do is tighten your seat belt and launch the car through those corners, and I managed to improve by about second. I gave it everything I had tonight, but I couldn’t find any more time. Nonetheless I’m really glad to be on the front row and I hope that I can fight tomorrow with the Ferraris – it’s going to be a tough one, but not impossible.”

3rd – Sebastian Vettel, #5, Scuderia Ferrari, SF90: “I’m not completely satisfied with my Q3, as I wasn’t able to improve on my second attempt. I made a mistake in sector 1 and I realised I was not improving, so I decided to abort the lap. It started off very well, but I wasn’t able to put together the lap I potentially had. Overall, first and third is great for the team and even if I cannot be entirely happy we can say that we were able to extract the most from today. The new parts we have on the car worked as expected this weekend, since we are not losing out in the corners to the extent that we were in in Hungary, a track quite similar to this. We were able to extract more performance and also, in terms of race pace, I think we can be competitive. Yesterday we suffered with a lack of front grip, but tonight as the temperature dropped, it was better for us, the balance also improved from yesterday to today. The race will be really long but I think we could have some opportunities.”

You can read the full Formula 1 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix Starting Grid Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2019/races/1014/singapore/starting-grid.html

Earlier in FP3 it was Leclerc topping the session by 0.207 seconds ahead of Hamilton with Vettel third, Bottas fourth and Albon completing the top five.

You can catch up on the Free Practice 1 and 2 reports as well as this weekend’s race preview at the following links:

#Formula1 Singapore Airlines #SingaporeGP 2019 Preview – F1

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