Verstappen on sprint pole after another settings issue

Red Bull's Max Verstappen beat Mercedes driver George Russell to sprint pole at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Verstappen, fresh from his and Red Bull's first victory of the season in Malaysia last weekend, was 0.12 seconds quicker than the Briton, with Ferrari's Charles Leclerc third.

McLaren's Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris were fourth and fifth ahead of Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton, who went early in final qualifying and fell down the order from initially being second behind Leclerc.

Championship leader Kimi Antonelli, using the Mercedes upgrade that underperformed in Malaysia while Russell is on the previous specification, could manage only seventh.

And there were further glitches with the engine settings provided by governing body the FIA five days after the formation laps in the wet in Malaysia saw cars reduced to crawling speed as a result of a software bug.

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What went wrong this time?

The settings issue in Singapore, which was combined with a glitch in the F1 timing system that delayed the start of second qualifying, affected all cars but had a bigger impact on some drivers than others, depending on the timing of their runs.

The problem involved the settings being different before and after a red flag caused by a crash for Sergio Perez's Cadillac and left drivers complaining of reduced power.

It involved overtake mode - which allows an extra 0.5MJ of energy to be harvested - being switched on and off again in the space of 28 seconds.

Williams driver Carlos Sainz was knocked out in the first session after what we described as a "really poor lap", but added: "On top of that, half the cars did the lap with half a second quicker engine than the others.

"There was another software issue and we were on the bad end of it, and for whatever reason, the FIA, like in Malaysia, again didn't decide to do sporting equity and were happy to do half of the quali with cars with higher power than the other half of the cars.

"A bit confused why the sport keeps doing different things depending on who is out in Q1 or who is out in lap one."

Sainz said he did not think he would have made it through even without the settings problem.

Racing Bulls' Arvid Lindblad and Aston Martin's Lance Stroll were other drivers who were affected and were knocked out in the first session. Stroll's team-mate Fernando Alonso also suffered, but did progress, eventually qualifying 15th.

The FIA said in a statement: "During the first period of sprint qualifying there was a human error in race control unrelated to the timing issue also encountered in SQ1.

"This issue in question meant overtake mode was not available after the red flag period during SQ1.

"When it became apparent that overtake mode was not active after the restart, it was then activated for a period of 27 seconds before being deactivated again.

"The FIA acknowledges that this unfortunate human error had an impact on the performance of certain cars based on the timing of their run and their position around the lap.

"The second and third periods of sprint qualifying were not affected."

The FIA system automatically disables overtake mode when there is a red flag. A pop-up then appears on the screen asking whether officials want to re-enable it.

This was ignored, then overtake mode was reactivated before being disabled again, on the basis that it was fairer to do so than leave it enabled.

Upgraded Mercedes 'very difficult, very unpredictable'

Verstappen's pole lap appeared to be further confirmation of Red Bull's resurgence after his dominant win in Malaysia.

He faced an investigation for overtaking Hamilton under yellow flags shown before the first session was stopped for the Perez incident, but officials took no further action.

The four-time champion said he had not believed pole was possible before qualifying.

"We have some difficulties with the car in ride, as we know," he said, "but at least when we went to the soft tyres (in the final session), it made the car a bit more stable in places where before you were a bit unsure.

"I did not expect this but you take it, I'm happy for sure. Qualifying tomorrow is still the main goal and for us the start is always a critical point but at least a positive end to our day."

Russell's performance compared with that of Antonelli raises further doubts about the efficacy of the Mercedes upgrade introduced in Malaysia.

It was their biggest car update since the Canadian Grand Prix in May but team boss Toto Wolff said at Sepang that it had appeared to take them backwards rather than forwards.