Singapore Sprint: Verstappen wins as Russell crashes out of the lead and the McLarens collide
Russell grabbed the lead from Verstappen at the start, then lost control at the end of the first lap. In a Sprint where eight cars failed to finish, his title hopes took another hit.
Max Verstappen won the first ever Singapore Sprint, a wet, chaotic race that left eight of the 22 starters out before the chequered flag. Lewis Hamilton charged from sixth to second, with Charles Leclerc third. The win means Verstappen has now won at every circuit he has raced at in Formula 1. Singapore was the last one missing. The biggest casualty was George Russell, whose title hopes slipped further away before the first lap was even complete.
Russell’s lead lasts one lap
The Sprint started 30 minutes late after a thunderstorm left standing water on the track. When it finally got going, Russell made a brilliant getaway from second to take the lead from pole-sitter Max Verstappen.
It lasted barely a lap. At the end of lap 1, Russell touched the painted white lines in the damp, lost control of his Mercedes and spun into the barriers. The rest of the field just managed to avoid him in the spray.
Russell put it down to a miscalculation: he had more battery deployment than he expected, which pushed him wide. “Silly mistake,” he said.
Verstappen had the best view of it. “He was sideways already a few times in that first lap, so I think he was just pushing quite hard,” he said. “Easy mistake to make, I guess.”
Why it hurts so much
Russell was on course for eight points. Instead he leaves with nothing, and he still starts Sunday’s Grand Prix from the back after his engine penalty.
Kimi Antonelli came into the weekend 84 points clear. After finishing fourth, he leaves Saturday 89 points clear, with 175 left to play for. Russell needs Antonelli to have a disaster, and he’s running out of races for it to happen.
A Sprint of attrition
Russell was far from alone. Alex Albon hit Gabriel Bortoleto from behind at Turn 16, with Valtteri Bottas caught up in it, and Isack Hadjar was told to stop with a power unit problem. Lance Stroll and Franco Colapinto were also out early, with Colapinto parking his Alpine on lap 4. Sergio Perez was the eighth retirement.
McLaren’s last-lap disaster
The chaos saved its worst for McLaren. Lando Norris went for the inside of Oscar Piastri and the two spun together. Norris recovered to finish eighth. Piastri was left stranded and limped home 14th, a lap down.
For a team fighting to finish 2026 on a high, losing a big haul of points to a collision between its own drivers is the last thing it needed.
What they said
Max Verstappen wasn’t celebrating. “The start was horrendous again,” he said. “If you have something like that tomorrow, that’s your race over if nothing crazy happens.” He added: “I want to win tomorrow and not today.”
Lewis Hamilton changed his start procedure after feeling the grip on the formation lap, and it paid off. “I had a mega start, which is awesome. I love driving this track in the rain,” he said. He thinks Ferrari can “fight with Max for the front row at least” in qualifying.
Charles Leclerc went for an aggressive set-up that worked early but left him with “no fronts from lap 10 onwards” once the track dried.
Lando Norris said he’d already apologised to the team. He thought the move was on and that he had the space. Oscar Piastri said he hadn’t seen the incident properly yet, and called it a shame for the team.
Should Singapore even have a Sprint?
All three drivers on the podium questioned it. Overtaking here is so hard that, as Hamilton put it, “if it was dry, that would have been probably the most boring race for you to have watched.” He wants the track changed, with a longer straight.
Leclerc went further: “I don’t think it makes sense to have any Sprint races on city tracks in general.”
Verstappen blamed the 2026 rules too. He said Overtake Mode “barely does anything here”, adding: “With how all the rules are at the moment, with our lovely batteries, yeah, it just doesn’t do much.” It’s the same question we asked after Sepang: has F1 put too much software between the driver and the car?
Result
Provisional, with several incidents still under investigation by the stewards.
| Pos | Driver | Team | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 8 |
| 2 | Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 7 |
| 3 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 6 |
| 4 | Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | 5 |
| 5 | Liam Lawson | Racing Bulls | 4 |
| 6 | Oliver Bearman | Haas | 3 |
| 7 | Nico Hulkenberg | Audi | 2 |
| 8 | Lando Norris | McLaren | 1 |
Did not finish: Albon, Bortoleto, Bottas, Colapinto, Hadjar, Russell, Perez, Stroll. Piastri was classified 14th, a lap down.
Our take
Eight retirements in 20 laps. The wet weather didn’t just shuffle the order, it decided the race. Singapore’s first Sprint will be remembered for who wasn’t at the finish.
