Oscar Piastri will start the Singapore Grand Prix sprint in fourth. Image: XPB Images
The Australian secured a second-row start behind Max Verstappen, George Russell and Charles Leclerc, while also finishing ahead of teammate Lando Norris for the first time in sprint qualifying this season.
It marked Piastri’s second consecutive fourth-place result in sprint qualifying and his third of 2026, having also finished fifth in the only practice session earlier in the day.
Despite struggling with the handling of his McLaren throughout qualifying, Piastri was encouraged by the improvement he found when switching to the soft tyres for the decisive SQ3 runs.
“I think that was more or less what we could have done,” Piastri told Sky Sports F1.
“It’s very tricky on a sprint weekend to get all the lap time out of the car here, but I felt like on the soft, things came alive a lot more.
“I was struggling on the medium, and then once I put the soft on, I felt pretty happy. So, yeah, not a bad effort.”
Piastri had encountered particular difficulties around Turns 2 and 3 during the day, with the challenging nature of the circuit continuing to expose some of the characteristics of his McLaren.
“I was struggling with a few things in the car through there. It was a little bit better now, but I think just the general feeling of the car is not any different to what it normally is,” he explained.
“You’ve got to really wring its neck to be quick. Once we added a bit more grip in with the soft, it was a bit better.”
Norris, meanwhile, was left frustrated with fifth, having finished two places ahead of Piastri in practice before the positions were reversed in sprint qualifying.
Asked whether the changing track conditions had played a role in his final result, the Briton accepted responsibility for his performance.
“I don’t think that’s the reason. I just don’t think I put together a very good lap. That was all. No excuse.” Norris told Sky Sports F1.
McLaren had also been working to address a fuel injection issue, with Norris offering a cautiously positive assessment of the team’s progress while acknowledging that investigations were continuing.
“I think so. From what I’ve seen so far. I don’t know everything just yet. The guys are still looking into it. And it’s been a busy day. But no, a lot of things seem good. We seem closer as a team.”
The Singapore Grand Prix sprint gets underway at 5pm local time on Saturday (8pm AEDT).
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