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Sebastian Vettel pipped by duo after seeming set for pole• Max Verstappen on second row of grid at Marina BayCharles Leclerc claimed pole for the
Singapore Grand Prix, putting in a magnificent lap of the street circuit for
Ferrari to deny Mercedes’s
Lewis Hamilton, who was second. In a close qualifying session Sebastian Vettel was in third for Ferrari with Max Verstappen in fourth for Red Bull. Valtteri Bottas was in fifth with Alexander Albon in sixth.
Under the floodlights of the Marina Bay circuit Leclerc took pole with an outstanding lap in qualifying that he left to his final run. Vettel had set a superb time on his first hot lap with a 1min 36.457sec. He was threading the needle with the flair he has shown in Singapore on previous occasions, going to within a whisker of the walls but keeping it clean. However he made an error on his second lap and aborted it while Leclerc found another plane altogether.