Max Verstappen Finally Defeats the Singapore Grand Prix
After 11 years in the sport, 4 time world champion Max Verstappen has never won the Singapore Grand Prix until this year.
The Singapore Grand Prix weekend was filled with chaotic on-track action with some delays to sessions. This weekend was the first time that the Singapore circuit has ever held a Sprint race meaning the drivers only had one practice session to collect all of the data they needed.
Friday
FP1
In FP1, we discovered that Mercedes had split their cars with George Russell running the old Mercedes car, whilst Kimi Antonelli ran the new, upgraded version. The first yellow flag in the session was brought out due to Nico Hulkenberg pulling over at the pit exit as his car was stuck in gear. Then, with 1 minute left of the session, Kimi Antonelli caused the second yellow flag as he went off at turn 16. He had quickly managed to recover this by reversing out and ending the session in P7. It was his teammate George Russell who ended the session on top with a time of 1:32.274.
Sprint Qualifying
Later in the afternoon, sprint qualifying arrived and a yellow flag was quickly brought out as Sergio Perez locked up at turn 4 and was in the barrier. This was soon turned into a red flag as the marshalls had to go out onto the track and collect the debris that fell off the Cadillac. The session had resumed at 20:46 local time and it was Verstappen who led the leaderboard with a 1:33.477 whilst Stroll, Bortoleto, Albon, Bottas, Sainz and Perez were knocked out.
The start of SQ2 was delayed because there were timing issues, which meant that Bortoleto had actually knocked out Lindblad and had made it into the second part of qualifying. George Russell had to abort his lap towards the end of the session and he had locked up into one of the corners and had just narrowly made it into the final third of qualifying. Being knocked out of SQ2 was Colapinto, Hulkenberg, Bearman, Bortoleto, Alonso and Ocon.
SQ3 was smooth sailing with no incidents happening and it was Max who had put his Red Bull on pole.
Saturday
Sprint Race
Saturday brought the rain and delays after the first ever Sprint race in Singapore was delayed by half an hour. When the race time was confirmed, the cars did 2 formation laps behind the safety car and then Carlos Sainz dove into the pitlane to start the race after set up changes.
All drivers were on the intermediate tyres for the standing start and it was George Russell who stole the lead from Max before the first corner. The amazing start didn’t bode well for Russell as at the end of Lap 2, he spun and hit the wall at the start/finish straight after hitting the wet curb, bringing out the safety car. At the same time at Turn 5, Isack Hadjar pulled off into the run-off area as his engine braking went. And at Turn 16, Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll had collided and that resulted in no further action. During the safety car period, Franco Colapinto had come to a stop between Turn 13 and 14 with power related issues that caused his car to shut down.
Arvid Lindblad was being investigated for driving the wrong way on the track but received no further action. Lap 16 was when Alex Albon was told to retire his car after a collision with Gabriel Bortoleto earlier on. The last lap of the Sprint brought some action as both McLaren cars were fighting for P4 and P5 but had collided, with Lando going into the side of Oscar Piastri at Turn 5 resulting in Oscar stopping on track and Lando moving down the order to P8. Despite this, Max Verstappen won the Sprint race followed by the Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.
Qualifying
Because of the delay for the Sprint race, Qualifying had to be delayed as there needed to be at least a 3 hour interval between the sessions so it started at 21:30 local time.
Estaban Ocon had caused the first yellow flag with him touching the barrier after he went into the run-off area and then locked up whilst trying to turn around. Isack Hadjar had failed to get out of Q1 as he had locked up into Turn 5 and managed to get out but had started driving very slowly because the engine turned off. Lewis Hamilton had led the first third of Qualifying with a time of 1:32.4, whilst being knocked out was Alonso, Albon, Stroll, Bottas, Perez and Hadjar.
In the middle of Q2, Aston Martin had announced that Fernando Alonso would be joining George Russell at the back of the grid as they were going to change his engine. Throughout this session, many drivers kept sliding about with Gabriel Bortoleto having issues and Franco Colapinto tapping the wall after Turn 17 which only let him qualify P16. Eliminated from the session was Hulkenberg, Bearman, Ocon, Sainz, Bortoleto and Colapinto.
Q3 went smoothly with everyone of the drivers having new soft tyres but the Racing Bulls. Towards the end of the session, all of the drivers dove straight into the pits before completing their final flying lap and it was Mercedes who went out first with 4:30 left to go. The rest of the grid came out a minute after them two but we saw not much improvement from the laps already set. This meant that Max Verstappen was set to start his 250th race with his 50th pole position.
Sunday
Grand Prix
The grid for the Grand Prix saw George Russell take a 40 place grid penalty for changing multiple power unit elements with an additional 20 place grid drop for more changes to the power unit elements. We had three drivers start from the pitlane with Alonso having new PU components and set up changes, Stroll also having set up changes and Hadjar having new PU elements with a set up change with his suspension. The tyres used for this race were the C5 soft compound, the C4 medium and the C3 hards.
The lights went out and Max Verstappen had managed to keep the lead into the first few turns with Haas teammates of Bearman and Ocon fighting it out for P11. Lap 8 was when Race Control called the VSC and Gabriel Bortoleto had stopped by the pit exit due to a gearbox issue ending his race, and causing the pitlane to close. The pitlane reopened on Lap 10 and Hamilton was the first one to dive in there on Lap 20 going from the medium compound to the softs.
Another race that came to an end early was Franco Colapinto as he had pulled off into the Turn 8 run-off area. Kimi Antonelli was given the black and white flag on Lap 37 whilst Stroll was given one the following lap. Right after this, Stroll had stopped on track after a lock up. He had tried to reverse his car out but his race engineer had told him to stop because of a clutch issue and brought out the second VSC of the race. Under the VSC, Ferrari had put Charles Leclerc back onto the soft tyres whilst keeping Lewis Hamilton out on track. Mercedes had brought George in after pitting Kimi but as Russell had entered the pitlane, the VSC had ended and the cars were back to normal racing speed so George lost more time whilst in the pitlane and went from P7 to P11. The pits didn’t see much action after that up until Lap 59 when Oscar Piastri came in again to fix a slow puncture.
All throughout the race, Max Verstappen was having radio problems and when his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase was trying to communicate with him, all he heard was muffled speaking.
Lap 54 was when Lewis Hamilton’s tyres finally started to wear out as he had fallen back to Norris and Antonelli who were all fighting for P3. However, it was Kimi Antonelli who came out ahead of them as Hamilton had gone off track to defend from Norris, and Lando had gone wide into one of the corners. Lewis had then lost another position to the other McLaren of Oscar Piastri and ended up in P6 on the last lap.
In the end, it was Max Verstappen who won the Singapore Grand Prix having back-to-back wins from Sepang last week. This also meant that Verstappen has now had a podium at every track on the 2026 calendar in his career. Following close behind him to round off the podium was Charles Leclerc in second and Kimi Antonelli in third who extended his championship lead and could win it next round out in Austin, Texas.
Article Written by Sophie Wong
