Max Verstappen's got pole position for the Singapore Grand Prix sprint race, and he's managed to dodge a penalty bullet in the process. The Oracle Red Bull Racing driver claimed his 11th sprint pole with a time just over a tenth quicker than George Russell's older-spec Mercedes, setting up a cracking front row battle at the Marina Bay Street Circuit. There'd been an investigation into an alleged yellow flag infringement involving Verstappen, but the stewards decided to let him keep his spot at the sharp end.

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Russell lines up alongside him in second, while Charles Leclerc's Ferrari claimed third place. The McLaren pair of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris fill fourth and fifth respectively, with the reigning world champion Norris hoping to make up ground from that position. Lewis Hamilton couldn't quite find the extra pace and missed out on a front-row spot, finishing over half a second down and settling for sixth in his Ferrari. The seven-time champ clearly felt his sprint qualifying strategy didn't work out the way he'd hoped.

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Championship leader Kimi Antonelli is only seventh in Mercedes, suffering the consequences of the team's problematic upgraded package that's given them a difficult weekend so far. The rest of the top ten sees Liam Lawson's Racing Bulls, Isack Hadjar's Red Bull, and Pierre Gasly's Alpine making up the grid, though there's plenty of action still to come before Saturday's 21-lap sprint gets underway at 10:00 UK time.

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Things got a bit messy in sprint qualifying when race control accidentally left several cars running down on power at the end of SQ1 due to human error. Williams driver Carlos Sainz bore the brunt of it, dropping all the way to 22nd on the grid as a result of the mix-up. It's the kind of chaos that always seems to pop up at Marina Bay, and it's already got people talking about yet another embarrassing timing glitch during the session.

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