the 2026 singapore grand prix: tenth time lucky for verstappen
verstappen wins the sprint and the grand prix from pole at marina bay, hamilton skips a pit call and falls to sixth, and antonelli can win the title in austin.
last week i predicted max verstappen would make it two in a row and fernando alonso would score again. one out of two. i’ll let you guess which.
marina bay was the track the dutch lion couldn’t crack. nine tries, four podiums, no wins and not even a pole. this year he took everything on offer: sprint pole, the sprint, grand prix pole and the grand prix. 33 points out of 33.
saturday’s sprint started half an hour late after a downpour. george russell beat verstappen into turn 1, led for one lap, then touched the white line coming out of the last corner and spun into the pit wall. he called it a silly mistake. the gods get the day off for that one, george. verstappen won from lewis hamilton, who had started sixth.
and mclaren? oscar piastri and lando norris were fourth and fifth on the last lap when norris went up the inside at turn 5 and spun them both. piastri hit the wall and norris finished eighth. the stewards blamed nobody. andrea stella called it serious, and he’s right: red bull is now seven points behind mclaren for third.
qualifying: verstappen on pole by 0.054 seconds from charles leclerc, the 50th pole of his career. russell qualified sixth and started 19th, because the engine that died at sepang cost him a 60-place grid penalty for new parts. (60 places. on a grid of 22.) alonso, lance stroll and isack hadjar all started from the pit lane.
the race was the easy part. leclerc got alongside into turn 1, verstappen squeezed him out, and nobody saw the lead again. he led all 62 laps, stopped once and beat leclerc by 7.3 seconds. it’s his 73rd win, in his 250th start. “it’s taken a while,” he said. ten tries, max. but yes.
then there’s hamilton. he was third, stuck behind leclerc on ferrari’s orders to hold position, when stroll’s aston martin stopped and brought out a virtual safety car. ferrari called both cars in. leclerc pitted. hamilton stayed out and tried to take his old softs to the end. they didn’t make it. he fell from second to sixth and apologised to the team on the radio. a week after saying no to a ferrari pit call won him a podium at sepang, doing it again cost him one.
kimi antonelli finished third, mostly by being there when norris and hamilton both ran off at turn 1 fighting over the place. he also had four laps deleted for track limits and got no penalty. toto wolff joked about sitting him on a hotel pillow so he can see the white lines.
russell came back to ninth, and hadjar to tenth from the pit lane. my GOAT finished 16th, a lap down, and told aston martin on the radio how ridiculous the engine is. he’s not wrong.
the championship: antonelli 340, russell 238, hamilton 229, verstappen 221, leclerc 215, norris 201. that’s a 102-point lead with six races left and no sprints. kimi can win the title in austin if he wins the race with russell ninth or lower and hamilton fifth or lower.
austin is on october 25. my prediction: verstappen makes it three in a row, and kimi has to wait until mexico. see you there.