George Russell will start on pole position for the 2025 Singapore Grand Prix after a blistering final lap in qualifying put him almost two-tenths of a second ahead of Max Verstappen who will join him on the front row of the starting grid for the race.

Verstappen complained that Lando Norris didn’t get out of the way quickly enough on his final flying lap, causing the Red Bull driver to back off without a chance to challenge Russell.

Norris will only start fifth, qualifying 0.4sec behind Russell, with Kimi Antonelli ahead in fourth and Oscar Piastri third.

Lower down the grid, both Williams drivers have been relegated to the back after the DRS flap on both cars’ rear wings was found be opening too widely. Carlos Sainz is expected to start ahead of Alex Albon, because he was the fastest of the two in the final practice session.

Scroll down or click to see how the grid will look when it lines up for the 18th grand prix of the season, which starts at 1pm BST (8pm local time).

“Amazing to be on pole position,” said Russell, who crashed in Friday’s second practice session, and said that much of his set-up was based on team-mate Antonelli’s data. “Yesterday was very challenging for many different reasons. It’s good to get back and get a good result.”

However, Russell wasn’t getting carried away, remembering his final lap crash in 2023 when he lost the chance of victory. “Not going to get carried away,” he said. “This circuit hasn’t be kindest to me in the past.”

Verstappen was visibly angry at what he saw was Norris’s delay in moving out of his way, but he is once again ahead of both McLarens, which look to be lacking pace. Norris qualified a tenth of a second ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who was another tenth faster than team-mate Charles Leclerc.

Isack Hadjar and Oliver Bearman joined the top-ten shootout, and will start ahead of tenth-placed Fernando Alonso.

The first Q1 stage brought frustration for Piastri who had to restart his flying lap after marshals mistakenly waved a yellow flag when Alex Albon drove off track to avoid impeding the McLaren.

His eventual eighth-place effort didn’t look to be enougb as the track became faster and faster throughout the session. He — and every other driver — went out again at the end of the session, as the track became faster and faster.

There were several tales of woe in the bottom five: Lance Stroll failed to improve when he nudged the wall on his fast lap, while Pierre Gasly’s hopes of escaping the elimination zone ground to a halt, along with his car, when he had a hydraulic issue.

The parked Alpine brought out yellow flags, which ended Gabriel Bortoleto and Esteban Ocon’s chances of getting into the top 15. Franco Colapinto was the other driver to be eliminated.