F1 Singapore GP Live Commentary and Updates – Qualifying

Both McLarens, Ferraris and Mercedes are joined by a Red Bull, Haas, RB and an Aston Martin, leaving Williams, Alpine and Sauber as the only teams without a stake in this Q3 session. F1 2024 can't be faulted for variety, can it?

Here's your run down of the drivers that will fight for pole then: Piastri claims bragging rights by topping the Q2 times from Verstappen, who had the early scare that left him without a time from his first run. They are joined by Leclerc, Hamilton, Norris, Sainz, Hulkenberg, Russell, Tsunoda and Alonso.

With Q2 at a close, both Williams drivers miss the cut for Q3 with Albon set to start 11th and Colapinto 12th. Perez is 13th, Magnussen 14th and Ocon 15th.

Alonso and Albon are in as things stand, Tsunoda and Perez out. Can they respond?

Ocon improves, but only to 11th and appears destined to miss out.

Perez is now the man on the bubble in tenth, with Magnussen, Alonso, Albon, Colapinto and Ocon queuing up to dislodge him from Q3. This could get tasty.

Alonso, Albon, Colapinto, Ocon and Verstappen are the five currently facing elimination in Q2 unless they can pull something out of the bag. 

A 0.078s advantage then for Hamilton. Who saw that coming five minutes ago? 

Leclerc is back to where he was on Friday riding Norris's coat tails in second, with Piastri third and Hulkenberg a surprising fourth after that first run. Verstappen, without a time on the board, needs to pull something big out of the bag next time around. 

Quickest so far is Norris, whose opening effort of 1m30.007s is 0.005s slower than he managed in Q1. How about that for consistency?

Oof, almost a big one for Verstappen at the final corner. He clocks a 1m30.371s, quicker than Perez, but loses the time after running wide over the kerbs at the final corner and getting a big snap of oversteer. Stroll last year shunted heavily there, but fortunately the Red Bull man gathered it together.

Everybody bar the two Mercedes drivers has now headed out of the pits. Perhaps some frantic work going on down in the garage to tweak set-ups more to their drivers' liking after Russell's ire in Q1.

Leclerc was still ahead of Russell however; the Mercedes driver vocal in his criticism of his tyres feeling totally different to FP3. That is not a new theme for Russell, who has held talks with Pirelli after lamenting its rubber's “infuriating” performance fluctuations in Baku. You can read about that here.

Leclerc in the end slumped to 12th in that session, but there is a caveat to that. He was the last driver out of the pits, and so had the luxury of being able to back out of setting a time on that last run in the knowledge he was already safe.

Not the outcome Ricciardo wanted then, as speculation continues to swirl over his future in the RB team after Singapore. Tsunoda in tenth showed that his car had the potential to make the second stage of qualifying.

Ocon dropped into the bottom five for a moment, and he ends up being the man on the bubble in 15th as Ricciardo, Stroll, Gasly, Bottas and Zhou miss out.

Colapinto moves up to ninth and knocks out Ricciardo!

Ricciardo improves, but remains 15th. Will he be knocked out in Q1? He won't be by Stroll, who is 16th.

Perez was down in 14th but looks to have got himself out of danger by going fifth, ahead of Albon, while Verstappen splits the McLaren duo in second.

One more run to go now for everybody else to claim their spot in Q2. Can any of the five currently in the drop zone rescue themselves from danger?

Also under threat of Q1 elimination are Bottas, Zhou, Colapinto and Stroll. Ricciardo is the man currently on the bubble in 15th spot.

Ocon has pulled something out of the bag - not only is he eighth on the timesheets, but he has the fastest final sector of anybody so far. The Alpine driver's team-mate Pierre Gasly is currently 16th and facing danger as things stand.

Replays are showing us an almighty slide for Verstappen. That needed every ounce of his undoubted talent to avoid a massive impact with the wall, akin to Stroll's heavy accident last year.

Sainz has been noted by the stewards for not following the race director's instructions after his off at Turn 1. He's been shuffled back to sixth by Hulkenberg.

Here comes Verstappen and he's second fastest, 0.130s down on Norris with the fastest first sector. But Leclerc bites back to reclaim second on a 1m30.786s, just 0.062s down on Norris.

Hamilton briefly took fifth with his first flyer, but is displaced almost immediately by Tsunoda. However, the RB driver's hold on the position is similarly brief as Alonso moves into fifth, and Magnussen into sixth.

The first efforts for the Williams pair put them fifth and seventh, either side of Perez. However Colapinto, running without the upgrades afforded to Albon, is a second slower than his more experienced team-mate for now.

Piastri slots into third for the time being, 0.244s slower than Norris. That is also 0.02s quicker than Sainz, who had to abort his first effort after a lairy Turn 1 moment took him beyond track limits.

The opening gambit from Leclerc is a 1m30.896s, which is over seven tenths quicker than Perez.

A 1m32.635s is the first time on the board for Ocon, which puts him top. But it won't be there long based on the time Norris set to lead FP3 was under the 90s marker.

Both Ferraris are out early from the start of the session, along with Perez, both McLarens, Alpines and Saubers. All, obviously, are using the soft tyres.

We are green for Q1 in Singapore. The last time anybody not driving a Ferrari took pole here was Hamilton in 2018, so the red cars will be favourites to progress through this first knock-out session, but will not be taking anything for granted.