‘I don't know what we've done to find this performance’ – Russell admits shock after taking Singapore pole

Mercedes' George Russell admits "I don't know what we've done to find this performance" having taken a sublime pole position for the Singapore Grand Prix.

The Briton set two laps quick enough for his first pole at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, beating Max Verstappen by less than two-tenths, while team mate Kimi Antonelli made it a good day for Mercedes by qualifying fourth.

It marked a strong turnaround for Russell after hitting the barriers in FP2, and a result which left him surprised given Mercedes' tendency to struggle in warmer conditions.

"If I were to put my money on the circuits we had a chance of being on pole I reckon this would have been in the bottom three to be honest," he said.

"I don't know what we've done to find this performance. I think we've all been a little bit surprised by McLaren's lack of performance as we were expecting them to fly here but I'll take it."

Russell has taken only one other pole position this season, which came in Montreal and also where he took his sole victory of the 2025 campaign so far.

He held off Verstappen on that occasion and with the Red Bull driver set to start alongside him in Sunday's race, Russell admitted that victory was far from guaranteed despite it being a difficult circuit to overtake on.

"Singapore’s not been the kindest to me in the past and that’s been through my own doing the majority of the time," he said.

"I’m not going to get carried away with this pole position. Of course it’s the best place to start, there’s a good pole side advantage here and I’d like to think I can hold the lead into Turn 1 but obviously this guy [Verstappen] on my left is pretty good at race starts and sending it down the inside, so I’ll be keeping an eye."

Antonelli registered his second top-four start on the bounce having shown strong form throughout Qualifying, despite failing to set a time with either of his first runs in Q1 and Q2 due to traffic and track limits respectively.

"Q1 was quite sketchy again with the traffic and then I found myself with no lap and I had only one shot," he said.

"But I felt really strong. I felt really strong in Q1, I felt strong in Q2 and in Q3 I felt it was possible to be on the front row at least but I started to overdrive and started to push too much.

"Left a lot of time on the table, just a shame because the potential was high today."