F1 Singapore GP: “I Was Only Here to Win” - Max is Back
Max Verstappen finally conquers Singapore with a clean sweep, proving that being out of the title fight doesn't mean being out of the conversation.
On his 250th Grand Prix start, Max Verstappen turned Formula 1’s most unforgiving street circuit into a Red Bull victory lap. Two poles, two wins, a broken radio and one last Singapore box ticked. But while Max owned the weekend, someone else was getting closer to the world title.
There's something almost irritating about the way Max Verstappen wins races. Other drivers spend weekends talking about finding confidence, unlocking potential and building momentum. Max generally wants to know why something on the car still isn't working.
Singapore had been one of the few places where the four-time world champion hadn't managed to win a Grand Prix. On his tenth attempt, he didn't just put that right. He took pole for the Sprint, won it, grabbed another pole for Sunday's race and then led all 62 laps to claim his 73rd career Grand Prix victory. All on his 250th start.
It wasn't quite as comfortable inside the cockpit as it appeared on television. There were problems at the start, electrical deployment issues, a radio that stopped playing ball and Singapore's familiar punishment of heat and humidity.
The result? A 7.335-second win over Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, with Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli third.
But the more interesting story might be the contrast between the two men on the podium. Verstappen was celebrating his first Singapore win. Antonelli, still just 20, was quietly building a 102-point championship lead. The most accomplished driver on the grid was winning the weekend. The youngest contender was getting closer to winning the season.
The Lowdown
Max completed the Singapore sweep. Sprint pole, Sprint victory, Grand Prix pole and Grand Prix victory. It was his second successive GP win after Bahrain.
His starts are still a problem. He lost the lead at the start of Saturday's Sprint and nearly surrendered it to Leclerc on Sunday.
Red Bull found its rhythm. Strong tyre management and race pace made the car difficult to challenge once Verstappen had clear air.
Ferrari had a chance, then lost it. Leclerc finished second, while Hamilton dropped to sixth after missing a pit opportunity under the Virtual Safety Car.
The championship had a different winner. Antonelli extended his lead to 102 points over George Russell with six races remaining.
There was a personal moment behind the victory. Verstappen shared the podium with longtime race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, who is due to leave Red Bull.
Federation Internationale de l'Automobile
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“I Was Only Here to Win.”
Saturday should have been a warning.
Verstappen won the wet Sprint, but only after a dreadful getaway and George Russell's early crash handed him an opening. In Sunday's Grand Prix, he didn't get the perfect launch either. Leclerc was close enough to make Turn 1 uncomfortable, and an early deployment problem almost gave the Ferrari another chance at Turn 7.
There are some drivers who can afford a bad start because their car is comfortably quicker. In Singapore, where overtaking is notoriously difficult, that assumption becomes dangerous.
Max understood the stakes: he'd spent years trying to win here, and after qualifying first there was no appetite for another near miss.
Once he survived that opening challenge, the story changed. Red Bull had the pace to manage the soft and medium tyres without surrendering control. What began as a fight became a chase that Ferrari couldn't quite sustain.
A victory that looked inevitable after 20 laps had been anything but inevitable in the first two corners.
“Better Than 49, Not as Good as 51.”
Fifty career pole positions. A fairly significant milestone for most drivers.
For Verstappen, apparently just another number between two other numbers.
His response following Saturday's qualifying session was dry enough to make the Singapore humidity feel even worse.
It's an insight into the difference between collecting achievements and actually enjoying them. Max has accumulated so many that the statistical milestones can seem like somebody else's obsession.
The more revealing fact was the car. Red Bull had found a workable setup from the beginning of the weekend and spent qualifying making smaller adjustments rather than desperately searching for pace.
His 50th pole wasn't a rescue job. It was evidence that Red Bull had arrived with something competitive, even at a circuit that historically hadn't delivered Verstappen a Grand Prix victory.
And that should make everyone else slightly uncomfortable.
“The Start Was Horrendous Again.”
Winning a race doesn't mean everything went well.
Singapore's Sprint was a perfect example. Russell jumped ahead at the start, then lost control on the wet surface and crashed out. Verstappen inherited the lead, controlled the restart and took the chequered flag.
It would have been easy to leave Singapore on Saturday thinking Red Bull had everything sorted.
Instead, Verstappen's concern was the launch. He knew a repeat on Sunday could cost him the Grand Prix, especially if nobody ahead made a mistake.
That's the unglamorous part of maintaining a winning team. Someone has to keep pointing at the things that are wrong, even when everybody else is celebrating what's right.
This time, he had the pace and the good fortune to overcome it. Neither is guaranteed to turn up every weekend.
“The Last Few Races Have Been Really Positive for Us.”
Red Bull's recent revival is more than a couple of good qualifying laps.
Victories in Bahrain and Singapore showed that the car could deliver at two demanding circuits, with Verstappen finding the consistency to turn pace into results.
The biggest difference in Singapore was tyre management. The RB22 had the pace to make its strategy work without getting dragged into a desperate fight with Ferrari.
Even the failure of Verstappen's radio, which forced Red Bull to communicate through pit boards, didn't materially change the outcome.
Meanwhile, his teammate Isack Hadjar fought from a pit-lane start to tenth. It was a weekend that showed both the growing competitiveness of the Red Bull package and the sizeable difference between what Verstappen could extract from it and what the second car delivered.
That remains a fascinating problem for Red Bull: how much of its improved form belongs to the machinery, and how much to the person driving car number three?
“I Gave It All and I Don’t Regret Anything.” — Charles Leclerc
Ferrari had genuine reasons to believe Singapore might belong to them.
Leclerc had been strong in qualifying and applied pressure to Verstappen early. The team had introduced new parts and, for sections of the race, appeared closer to Red Bull than in recent rounds.
But being close and being capable of winning aren't necessarily the same thing.
The late Virtual Safety Car gave Leclerc an opportunity to switch onto fresh soft tyres and chase Verstappen down. Hamilton missed the chance to pit, leaving the two Ferraris on contrasting strategies.
Leclerc recovered to second, but the aggressive opening to his final stint came at a price in tyre degradation. Hamilton eventually fell to sixth.
Ferrari had speed. It had an opportunity. It also had another Sunday when the final result didn't quite match the promise of the car.
“Can I Really?” — Kimi Antonelli
This might be the most revealing exchange of the weekend.
Antonelli finished third, partly by taking advantage of the late battle between Norris and Hamilton. Then, in the post-race interview, Jenson Button raised the possibility that the Italian could clinch the world championship at the next race in Austin.
The surprise was in the question being asked at all.
At 20, Antonelli is closing in on a title against drivers who've spent years dealing with the politics, expectations and absurd pressures of Formula 1.
He didn't need to win Singapore. With Russell finishing ninth, another podium was enough to push his lead to 102 points.
And that creates the strange split-screen of the 2026 season. Verstappen is producing the sort of weekends that remind everyone why he has four world championships. Antonelli is producing the sort of season that might earn him his first.
One is winning races. The other is learning how to close out a championship without needing to win every Sunday.
“Don't Be Silly, We're Going to Win Much More.”
For all the lap times, trophies and technical arguments, one of the weekend's more human moments belonged to Verstappen and his longtime race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase.
With Lambiase preparing to leave Red Bull, Singapore offered the pair something they had never previously managed together: a victory at Marina Bay.
Lambiase joined Verstappen on the podium, a fitting way to mark another chapter in a partnership built through title fights, mechanical failures, difficult radio exchanges and years of competing at the sharp end.
Their working relationship hasn't always sounded particularly comfortable to outsiders. It has, however, lasted through some of the most successful seasons in F1 history.
That's often the overlooked part of high-performance relationships. Trust doesn't necessarily mean agreeing all the time. Sometimes it means knowing precisely how much disagreement the relationship can withstand.
For Max and GP, Singapore was one more win to share before things change.
