Max Verstappen always knew that sntaching pole in Marina Bay would be tough, and even more so after Friday's running, but the Red Bull charger wasn't expecting the "shocking experience" that he endured in qualifying.
Verstappen was ruled out of Saturday's top-ten shootout after he just couldn't get his undefeated RB19 up to speed on the sweltering streets of Singapore.
And adding insult to injury, the Dutchman was also preparing for a lengthy visit to the stewards' office after he was deemed to have been involved in three different investigations.
Completing Red Bull's anticlimactic evening was the fate of Sergio Perez who spun while on his final flyer in Q2 and ended up a lowly P13 in the final classifications.
But for Verstappen, the unexpected and painful shortfall was rooted in his car rather than in the circumstances.
"I knew that it was always going to be tough to put it on pole, but this, I didn’t expect," Verstappen told Sky F1 after the session.
"I think throughout the weekend we’ve been struggling. FP3 wasn’t too bad but then we tried a few more things on the car in qualifying and then I think tipped it over where it became undriveable again.
"The car was massively bottoming out in the big braking zones and all the time if I wanted to brake late and hard my front wheels were getting unloaded that bad.
"Like I said on the radio, a shocking experience and then trying to lean on the car a bit in the low-speed I was constantly sliding, no traction. Just really difficult to drive."
Such was the two-time world champion's gloomy outlook that he ruled out a Verstappen signature recovery drive to the podium on Sunday.
"No, no. For sure not," he added. "I think anyway here it’s much less about having a good race car. It’s a bit like Monaco you put it all on qualifying.
"Even if you have deg, people won't really pass you because I think the tyre wear is not that high. It will be a long, tough afternoon.
"Hopefully not too many Safety Cars and the race will be quite short."
Verstappen was earmarked to start P11 on Sunday's grid, but there's an assurance that he'll be pushed down the order tomorrow by at least one of the three pending investigations initiated by the stewards.
The first case involves allegedly impeding at pit exit in Q1 when he was at the head of the line but delayed his entry onto the track.
The second potential infraction came at Turns 17/18 when he hindered the Williams of Logan Sargeant.
The final incident involved his presence in Q2 in front of AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda between Turns 3 and 4, where he was alleged to have blocked the Japanese driver.
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