2026 Singapore Grand Prix - Saturday

Allan McNish, Racing Director: “I think it was a pretty good session overall, certainly for Nico, who drove very well. He had a clean and tidy run through qualifying and extracted the maximum performance from the car that we had available tonight.

“On Gabi's side, we were a little bit off the pace for reasons we still need to understand. It is certainly not down to the driver, but we need to get to the bottom of why there was a performance difference between the cars throughout the lap, something we haven't seen at any point this season. We will be putting our heads together to understand that.

“With Russell's grid penalty, Nico will move up to P10, while Gabi will start from P14. I think those are good positions from which to fight for points tomorrow.”

Nico Hulkenberg (Car 27):
Sprint: 7th
Fastest Lap: 1:47.310 (Lap 11)
Strategy: Start (Inter)

Q1: 1:33.147 (10 laps)
Q2: 11th / 1:32.784 9 (9 laps)

"It was a positive Saturday overall. Picking up a couple of points in the Sprint was a nice bonus and we'll certainly take that. Qualifying was tidy as well. We tried a few things with the setup and threw everything at it in Q2, but in the end we were just missing that little bit of pace to make Q3.

"Starting from P10 [due to George Russell’s penalty] isn't a bad place to be around Marina Bay. We'll look through everything tonight, and hopefully we can put ourselves in the fight for points tomorrow."

Gabriel Bortoleto (Car 5):
Sprint: DNF
Fastest Lap: 1:16.922 (Lap 5)
Strategy: Start (Inter)

Q1: 1:34.169 (10 laps)
Q2: 15th / 1:33.658 (9 laps)

“It was a tough Saturday for me. This morning in the Sprint, everyone was bunched up in the last sector after the Safety Car restart, and I got hit from behind. There was nothing I could really do: the damage was very marginal, but unfortunately it was enough to make continuing impossible. It’s a shame because a race like this is full of opportunities, and maybe points were on the table today.

“Qualifying wasn’t great either. I made a mistake on my final lap and went straight in Turn 14. I didn’t feel like I had very good grip throughout the session, and I just didn’t manage to put the lap together. Until that point, it was looking quite good, but margins are small and mistakes are costly. Tomorrow, starting from P14 is going to be tough because this is a track where overtaking is very limited, but I’ll try my best and see what progress we can make.”