Singapore GP 2026 Preview: Sprint Times, Pole Forecast
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Singapore GP 2026 preview: the first Marina Bay sprint and a pole forecast
Singapore hosts its first sprint on 9 to 11 October, the last sprint of 2026. Session times in Singapore time, our 1:31.8 to 1:32.1 pole forecast, the last three races and what the 2025 radio tells you to listen for.
Singapore has never had a sprint. On 9 October it gets the last one of the 2026 season.
That changes the whole weekend at Formula 1's most physically demanding race. There is one practice hour, and then every other session counts: sprint qualifying on Friday night, the sprint and Grand Prix qualifying on Saturday, the race on Sunday. Teams will set their cars up for Marina Bay's 19 corners with less running than they have ever had here.
The 2026 cars are also slower than the ones that raced here last year. Measured at every circuit raced in both seasons, that puts pole between 1:31.8 and 1:32.1
, around three seconds off George Russell's 2025 pole and still comfortably quicker than the lap record.
The best way to know what Singapore does to a driver before the cars run is to hear last year's race. Every message from it is in our Singapore Grand Prix 2025 race radio archive, with the audio and a colour-coded transcript, and the best of it is below.
Singapore GP 2026 session times
Session
Day
Singapore time
UTC
Practice 1
Friday 9 October
16:30
08:30
Sprint qualifying
Friday 9 October
20:30
12:30
Sprint
Saturday 10 October
17:00
09:00
Qualifying
Saturday 10 October
21:00
13:00
Race
Sunday 11 October
20:00
12:00
Caption: Times from Formula 1's 2026 event schedule. Singapore is eight hours ahead of UTC.
The race is 62 laps of the 4.927 km Marina Bay Street Circuit, 305.337 km in total. It is one of six sprint weekends in 2026, with Shanghai, Miami, Montreal, Silverstone and Zandvoort, and Singapore is the last of them, according to Formula 1. How sprint weekends work is in the F1 sprint format explained.
The pole forecast: 1:31.8 to 1:32.1
There is no 2026 lap of Marina Bay yet, so the forecast comes from how much slower this year's cars have been at circuits they have already raced.
We compared pole laps at every 2026 circuit that also hosted qualifying in 2025, keeping only sessions with no rain and no intermediate or wet tyres. Across 11 circuits, 2026 pole was a median 3.35% slower. Against 2024, seven dry pairs gave a median of 2.53%. Singapore's last two poles were both set on a dry track, on soft tyres, so both work as a baseline.
Baseline
Pole lap
2026 cars slower by
2026 forecast
2024
1:29.525, Norris
2.53%
**1:31.790**
2025
1:29.158, Russell
3.35%
**1:32.145**
Caption: Pole laps from official timing. Rates are medians of dry qualifying sessions at circuits raced in both seasons.
Both are on the layout used since 2023, when the old Turn 16 to 19 section was replaced with a straight, as The Race explained. Hamilton's 1:33.808 from the 2025 race is the lap record on that layout, and even the slow end of the forecast is more than a second and a half quicker.
Expect the slower end. At street circuits the 2026 cars have not lost time evenly: Monaco pole was 3.00% slower than in 2025, Miami only 1.85%. Singapore is closer to Monaco. Its longest flat-out run is just 644 metres, and a lap made almost entirely of corners loses more to this year's lower downforce than one made of straights, as we measured in our Marina Bay circuit guide.
Caption: Results and race control messages from official timing.
The polesitter has won all three races on this layout. The last two races had no safety car at all, so the chaos this race is known for has not been the thing deciding it. Qualifying is. On a sprint weekend that means Saturday night at 21:00.
In 2025 light rain fell before the start, but every lap of the race was run on slick tyres.
What the 2025 race radio says
Three messages from last year's race explain more about Singapore than the result does.
Lap 6: Piastri and the first corner. On the opening lap Lando Norris went deep into Turn 3, hit his teammate Oscar Piastri and the back of Max Verstappen's Red Bull, and took third from Piastri. The stewards took no further action. Piastri's engineer relayed that, and that McLaren would not act during the race either.
"Mate, that's not fair. I'm sorry, that's not fair." Piastri finished fourth, 2.1 seconds behind Norris.
Lap 26: Norris will not give way. With Piastri due to stop to cover Charles Leclerc, Norris's engineer asked whether he would let his teammate pit the lap before him.
"No, I would not." Norris stayed ahead to the flag.
After the flag: Russell's win. Russell converted pole into his first Singapore win, two years after he hit the wall on the last lap while running third in 2023.
"George, that was mega today." The archive labels the whole message as the engineer's, but the end of it, "thanks Toto, made up for two years ago", reads like Russell. Norris, on his cool-down lap, celebrated McLaren's second constructors' title in a row, secured that night.
Sprint qualifying on Friday night. With one practice hour before it, the first competitive lap of the weekend comes at 20:30, and on a track where passing is this hard a bad sprint grid slot costs points on Saturday.
Qualifying at 21:00 on Saturday. The polesitter has won every race on this layout. It is the session that decides the weekend.
Brakes and heat across two races. A sprint of about 100 km adds to what is already one of the hardest weekends of the season on brakes and drivers. The rules for hot races are in F1 heat hazards and cooling vests.
Whether the forecast holds. A pole quicker than 1:31.8 would mean the 2026 cars have lost less here than at Monaco, the circuit Singapore most resembles.
Frequently asked questions
When is the 2026 Singapore Grand Prix?
Sunday 11 October 2026 at 20:00 Singapore time (12:00 UTC). The weekend starts with practice on Friday 9 October at 16:30.
Is the 2026 Singapore Grand Prix a sprint weekend?
Yes, for the first time. Sprint qualifying is on Friday 9 October at 20:30 and the sprint on Saturday 10 October at 17:00, both Singapore time. It is the last of six sprint weekends in 2026.
What time is qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix?
Saturday 10 October 2026 at 21:00 Singapore time (13:00 UTC), after the sprint.
What is the lap record at Marina Bay?
1:33.808, set by Lewis Hamilton for Ferrari during the 2025 Singapore Grand Prix, on the layout used since 2023.
Who won the Singapore Grand Prix in 2025?
George Russell, from pole, ahead of Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.
What will pole be at Singapore in 2026?
Our forecast is between 1:31.8 and 1:32.1, based on how much slower the 2026 cars have been in dry qualifying at circuits raced in both 2026 and the two previous seasons. We will update it after first practice.
A sprint weekend at Marina Bay means four sessions that count in three days, all at night, and the radio is where the arguments happen. The Formula Dream app plays live driver radio as it is broadcast, with the transcript beside the audio, a live timing Dashboard (currently in beta) with flag and safety car alerts, and every FIA document of the weekend, including every stewards' decision, the moment it is published.
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Bahrain GP at Sepang preview: session times and a pole forecast from 2017
The 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix runs at Sepang in Malaysia on 4 October, as a day race. Session times in Malaysian time, and our forecast of a 1:31.6 pole from how 2026 cars compare with 2017 at unchanged circuits.
