Verstappen wins wet Singapore sprint after Russell crashes out

Max Verstappen claimed a comfortable victory in the wet Singapore sprint after front-row starter George Russell crashed out of the lead on the first lap.

The race then ended with a bang when McLaren teammates Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris crashed, taking the former out of the race, in a battle for fourth place.

Rain hammered the street circuit shortly before its original start time, which triggered a 30 minute delay to the formation lap while the worst of the standing water cleared. When the lights finally went out, Russell got the perfect start to take the lead from Verstappen from the inside line of Turn 1.

Russell led comfortably until the final corner of the first lap, when he dipped his right-hand wheels onto the white line on exit and spun his car into the pit wall barrier, putting him instantly out of the race.

Further back, Lance Stroll turned in on Sergio Perez at the hairpin, with the ensuing contact sending him spinning into the barrier, while Perez returned to pit lane to retire. The stewards will investigate the collision after the session.

The safety car was called for both incidents, but the issues hadn’t finished.

Isack Hadjar radioed his team that his “engine braking is dying” and pulled off the track at Turn 5, comically steering so deep into the run-off area that he arrived in a publicly accessible part of the venue.

Franco Colapinto also stopped his car on track to retire, while Arvid Lindblad came perilously close to crashing on his own when he spun his car exiting Turn 5. He drove backwards towards the run-off area, where he executed a clumsy spin to rejoin, but the stewards put him under investigation for driving in the wrong direction.

The race resumed on lap 7 of 20, with Verstappen acing his restart to keep Lewis Hamilton at bay. The Briton had started sixth but got the perfect launch off the line to move behind the Dutchman, and he kept the pole man honest through the middle of the race.

Both were waiting for the dry line to complete its loop of the otherwise damp circuit, the rain having fallen hardest in the first and final sectors.

But the conditions were never quite dry enough for slicks, and with so few points on the line for a sprint, no-one was willing to take the risk.

Instead Verstappen, his intermediate tire usage better than Hamilton’s on the drying track, began pulling away for an ultimately comfortable 2.6s victory.

“The start was horrendous again, so it’s definitely something we need to improve on,” he said.

“Then we got a bit lucky with what happened with George.

“After that you just want to keep it calm and under control.”

It was Verstappen’s first win in Singapore in any format.

“I want to win tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t see this as a win in terms of actually winning a grand prix.”

Hamilton faded late to finish an untroubled second, his best finish in any format since the sprint at the British Grand Prix.

““I had a mega start, which is awesome,” he said.

“We showed that we obviously have a good car. I think if we can do slightly better in qualifying, get both cars up there, we’ll be able to apply pressure tomorrow to the Mercedes and Red Bulls.”

Charles Leclerc finished third in a late fraught battle with Piastri, who spent the final laps on his rear wing.

The slower Leclerc, who was struggling on his worn intermediate tires on the drying track, bottled up Piastri, which brought Lando Norris and Andrea Kimi Antonelli to play in a four-driver scrap for the final place on the podium.

Norris had pressured Piastri for position into Turn 5 at the start and again at the restart, and he chose that corner again, diving down Piastri’s inside.

But he slithered past the apex and tagged his teammate, spinning him into the barriers and out of the race.

Norris, who radioed his team arguing that he “was there” and wasn’t given enough room, was able to rejoin the race in eighth.

The crash, which will be investigated by the stewards, freed Leclerc to finish third ahead of Antonelli.

“I knew I had to have a very good exit out of [Turn] 5, because I was very weak in all right-hand corners, he said.

“I had quite a good exit, and then I saw the red lights of the back of the cars of the McLarens, so I knew that something happened.

“We just didn’t have the pace at the end.”

Antonelli improbably extended his championship lead to 89 points despite an uncompetitive performance in the troubled upgraded Mercedes, which he said was suffering “so much understeer”.

The late drama promoted Liam Lawson to fifth ahead of Oliver Bearman and Nico Hulkenberg, the latter two having pinched places from Pierre Gasly at the restart.

Gasly fell just 0.747s short of capitalizing on the McLaren crash but finished ninth and out of the points behind Norris.

Esteban Ocon finished 10th ahead of Fernando Alonso, Carlos Sainz and Lindblad.

Alex Albon retired late after spending most of the sprint far adrift of the field. The Williams driver had rear-ended Gabriel Bortoleto out of the race at the restart in an incident that also involved Valtteri Bottas, who likewise retired. The crash will be investigated after the session.

The delayed start to the sprint means qualifying will be delayed by approximately 20 minutes.

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