Charles Leclerc beats Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel to Singapore pole

Singapore GP

Leclerc beats Hamilton, Vettel to Singapore pole

What a lap from Charles!

Matthew Scott

Saturday 21 September 2019 16:02 Updated: 16:08

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Charles Leclerc secured pole position for the third race in succession, pipping Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel to P1 at the Singapore Grand Prix.

After victories from pole in Belgium and Italy, Leclerc and Ferrari had been expected to drop back into the pack around the Marina Bay Circuit.

But Leclerc took pole by almost two tenths of a second from Hamilton, who will start alongside him on the front row.

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Vettel starts third, having made a crucial mistake on his second Q3 run, when he had held provisional pole.

Max Verstappen had been expected to push Hamilton for pole, but is fourth, with Valtteri Bottas and Alexander Albon on the third row.

Leclerc now has more pole positions than anyone on the grid this year and is the man of the moment in Formula 1, but focus will switch to the other side of the Ferrari garage, where Vettel is left counting the cost of yet another unforced error.

Carlos Sainz will start seventh for McLaren, sharing row four with Daniel Ricciardo, who secured the season' s battle over Nico Hulkenberg, with his Renault team-mate in ninth and Lando Norris 10th.

Q2

Sergio Perez missed out by four hundredths of a second, as Renault and McLaren locked out the remaining places in the top-10 shootout.

Q1

Perez just nudged Daniil Kvyat out at the last, with Lance Stroll and Romain Grosjean dropping out alongside the Williams pair f Robert Kubica and George Russell, who had perhaps promised better in FP3 and apologised to his team after coming home 19th.