It was the culmination of an uncharacteristically poor weekend for Verstappen’s Red Bull Racing team, with teammate Sergio Pérez also starting in the bottom half of the grid in 13th place.
The hitherto unconquerable RB19 struggled for pace on Friday before enjoying a small upturn in during yesterday’s practice, but the weekend unravelled when day turned to night for the grid-setting hour.
The car was unbalanced as Verstappen and Pérez tried to match the times set by eventual pole-getter Sainz in his Ferrari.
Pérez’s session ended with a spin at turn 3. The same corner tripped up Verstappen too, for whom a frustrating moment of understeer more than accounted for the 0.007-second deficit he needed to make up to appear in the top-10 shootout.
“Shocking,” Verstappen summed on team radio. “Absolutely shocking experience.”
It was the first time both Red Bull Racing cars have qualified outside the top 10 in five years, and the difficulty passing around the Marina Bay street track will pose an existential threat to the team’s quest to complete F1’s first ever perfect season.
The Austrian team’s problems will be of little concern to Sainz, who saw the door opened to him to take his second consecutive pole in a tight battle with teammate Charles Leclerc and Mercedes driver George Russell.
The Spaniard’s better use of the tyres around the hot and humid street course gave him the edge, taking pole position by just 0.072 seconds.
“It’s been I think one of my strongest points of the weekend, really, keeping the rear tyres alive for the last sector,” he said. “It’s always easy in Singapore to over-push, to have a snap here and there and end up losing the lap.
“Even though I felt like I didn’t take too many risks during that lap, I kept it clean and it gave me a strong last sector and it was enough for pole position. So yeah, very happy with it.”
Russell split the Ferrari drivers to take a front-row start today, and the Briton was optimistic that his car’s better race pace would be enough to overcome both Ferrari drivers.
“The car has been feeling amazing this whole weekend,” he said. “Huge credit to the whole team - they’ve been working so hard putting in a lot of effort to maximise the car we’ve got.
“This is a great opportunity, this weekend, to get a victory… I think we’ve got the pace over Ferrari in the race.
“Tyre [degradation] looks bad, and I hope we’re going to put them in a challenging position to fend this off.”
But Charles Leclerc was hopeful that Ferrari’s two-to-one advantage, combined with pole position, would be enough to make the Italian team the year’s first non-Red Bull victor.
“Carlos is starting first, I’m starting third, so I think we can also put them under quite a bit of pressure,” he said. “I’m not worried.”
Lando Norris qualified fourth ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Kevin Magnussen, who along with Nico Hülkenberg in ninth delivered Haas a rare double Q3 appearance.
Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon will slot into seventh and eighth on the grid, with New Zealander rookie Liam Lawson an excellent 10th for AlphaTauri at just his third grand prix.
Verstappen wills tart 11th after facing three post-session investigations for impeding Logan Sargeant, Yuki Tsunoda and the pit lane, for which he escaped with two reprimands.
Pierre Gasly will start 12th ahead of Pérez, Thai driver Alex Albon and Tsunoda in the second AlphaTauri machine.
The battle to escape the bottom five was shaped by a monster crash by Lance Stroll exiting the final two corners. The Canadian carried too much speed, unsettled his car on the kerb and shot off into the wall, where he tore off his front-left wheel and destroyed much of his car.
Stroll was unscathed in the crash, but the ensuing lengthy red flag meant Q1 was ended on the sport with Valtteri Bottas, Oscar Piastri, Logan Sargeant and Zhou Guanyu sitting from 16th to 19th on the grid. Stroll will start last after a length repair job by his mechanics overnight.