As expected, Sprint Qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix was very closely fought. Come the end of the session, Charles Leclerc had secured third place, while Lewis Hamilton posted the sixth-fastest time.

The two SF-26s progressed through the first two stages of Sprint Qualifying without any problems, running the Medium tyres as required by the regulations. In SQ3, on Soft tyres, Charles opted to carry enough fuel for two attempts, while Lewis went for a single shot at pole position. The Monegasque stopped the clocks in 1'31"568 on his first flying lap, while Hamilton set a time of 1'31"702, which earned him sixth place at the end of the session. On his second attempt, Charles improved to 1'31"399, to claim third place.

Tonight, the team will prepare for the Sprint, which gets underway at 17.00 local time (11 CEST) over a distance of 20 laps. Saturday's race will provide useful information in preparation for Sunday's Grand Prix. As usual, parc fermé restrictions will be lifted at the end of the Sprint, allowing the teams to work on their cars ahead of Grand Prix qualifying, scheduled for 21.00 local time (15 CEST) for the Grand Prix itself.

Charles Leclerc: On my best lap, I got everything out of the car that we had today. There's potential to improve for tomorrow with some fine tuning, so we can be there in the fight for pole.

On a track like this, P3 is a good position to start the Sprint from, as overtaking will be difficult for all, so we will see what we can bring home.

Lewis Hamilton: In SQ3 we tried a different run plan, which in hindsight wasn't the right call. The car felt good on the Mediums, but I struggled with rear grip on the Softs, especially on my final lap. We need to understand whether that came down to tyre preparation, balance or overheating. The pace was there earlier in the day and although it didn't come together today, we'll focus on what we've learnt and how to extract more tomorrow.

Fred Vasseur: As we expected, Sprint Qualifying was pretty closely fought. Our cars were better on the Medium tyres than with the Softs and we will work on improving our performance on this compound for tomorrow's qualifying. Charles was competitive right to the end, while Lewis didn't manage to put together an optimal lap in SQ3. We can expect a busy day tomorrow, with the Sprint race providing information that will be useful for Sunday and, after that, we will shift our focus to qualifying which takes place after the sun has set.