FIA announce Singapore Grand Prix qualifying delayed after sprint race rain chaos

The FIA have confirmed that Saturday's qualifying session for the Singapore Grand Prix will be delayed.

The afternoon's sprint race was substantially more chaotic than expected, starting over half an hour late after a heavy rain storm arrived on short notice while the cars were sat on the grid.

That sprint then lasted longer than expected thanks to an elongated safety car period sparked by George Russell's crash at the end of the first lap, with the neutralised period stretching several laps as other cars – including those of Franco Colapinto and Isack Hadjar – retired for unrelated reasons.

Thanks to all of those delays, qualifying has been pushed back from 21:00 local time (14:00 BST) to 21:30 local time (14:30 BST). Good news for those looking for something to watch on TV this afternoon though: Sky Sports' coverage will start as planned, and will simply have a longer lead-in to the session.

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In between times, the start of the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia race set to be held between sessions will also be pushed back by half an hour.

The F1 race stewards might be grateful for the extra time before qualifying kicks off, with summons issued for five different incidents during the 20 laps of the sprint race.

On the most high-profile end, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will be in to discuss the last-lap incident which saw the Brit punt his team-mate into the wall attempting a lunge for fourth place, with collisions between Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez, and Alex Albon and Gabriel Bortoleto, also still to be litigated.

Ollie Bearman will be making a visit for allegedly failing to follow the race director's instructions, while Avrid Lindblad will be hauled up on an unusual charge of driving the wrong way on the track (which, mitigating circumstances or not, he absolutely did do).

On-track action might be delayed by half an hour, but there'll still be no shortage of drama!

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