Verstappen leads every lap in Singapore for his first Marina Bay win
Leclerc's two-stop strategy ends 7.3 seconds short, Antonelli takes third to lead by 102 points, and Russell recovers from 19th to ninth
Max Verstappen has finally won the Singapore Grand Prix. The Red Bull driver started from pole, led all 62 laps under the Marina Bay lights and took the flag 7.335 seconds ahead of Charles Leclerc. It is the 73rd Grand Prix win of his career, his second in a row after Sepang, and it came on his 250th Grand Prix start.
Kimi Antonelli finished third for Mercedes and now leads the championship by 102 points. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri took fourth and fifth for McLaren, a day after they collided in the Sprint. Lewis Hamilton, third on the grid, faded to sixth.
Turn 1 settled it
Leclerc made the better getaway from second on the grid, but Verstappen held the inside into Turn 1. Leclerc tried to stay with the Red Bull in the early laps, but the gap soon began to grow.
Verstappen started on the soft tyre, ran it until lap 33 and switched to mediums without losing the lead. After that he was never threatened. “It’s taken a while, but I think this race was very good,” Verstappen said afterwards. “We had pace when we needed to have it on the soft tyre and on the medium.”
Ferrari split the strategies, and neither worked
Leclerc made his first stop well before Verstappen and then pitted again under the second Virtual Safety Car for a final set of softs. On those fresh tyres he set the fastest lap of the race, a 1:35.202 on lap 41, and cut the gap to 7.335 seconds by the flag, which was not enough.
“We were quite strong at the beginning of the race, then we started degrading a bit more in the first stint,” Leclerc said. “I gave it all and I don’t regret anything.”
Hamilton went the other way. He started on mediums, switched to softs and then had to make that set last to the finish, because he stayed out under the second Virtual Safety Car after missing the pit entry. The tyre degradation caught up with him: Norris and Antonelli both got past in the closing laps, and Piastri took fifth from him on the last lap. After the race Hamilton apologised to his team.
A black-and-white flag, but no penalty for Antonelli
Antonelli‘s afternoon began with mechanics around his car: Mercedes replaced a front brake sensor because it was not sending telemetry. In the race he told his team something was leaking near his feet, had three lap times deleted for exceeding track limits, according to the stewards, and was shown the black-and-white flag, the last step before a penalty. None followed, and he finished more than 15 seconds clear of Norris.
“That was a tough race out there today and I am very happy to have ended it by finishing on the podium,” Antonelli said in Mercedes’ race-day comments. “I managed to capitalise on the battle between the two of them, passed them both, and take P3.”
The stewards looked at Hamilton leaving the track at Turn 1 while defending against Norris and took no further action, finding that Norris’s attempt “was not a legitimate one as Car 1 also left the track at the same point.” Piastri had a slow puncture, but his late pass on Hamilton gave McLaren fourth and fifth.
Russell from 19th to ninth
George Russell started 19th after a grid penalty for fitting a fifth engine. He was in the points by lap 31, but his only stop came as the second Virtual Safety Car was ending, so he gained little from it. He passed Pierre Gasly for ninth late in the race. The two points keep him second in the championship.
Behind the McLarens and Hamilton, Liam Lawson took seventh for Racing Bulls and Nico Hülkenberg eighth for Audi. Isack Hadjar started from the pit lane and passed Gasly late in the race for the final point.
A burning Audi and two Virtual Safety Cars
Gabriel Bortoleto’s race lasted seven laps. His Audi stopped near the pit exit with a suspected gearbox problem, the rear brakes started to smoke and the car caught fire before the marshals put it out, according to race reports. That brought out the first Virtual Safety Car. Franco Colapinto retired his Alpine after 29 laps with what the team called a suspected driveline issue, and Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin stopped after 36 laps with an overheating clutch, according to the team, which triggered the second. Alex Albon retired in the closing stages with overheating brakes but was still classified 18th. The full classification is on our Singapore Grand Prix 2026 results page.
Our arithmetic
Singapore was the last Sprint of the year, and with six Grands Prix left on the calendar there are 150 points still available. On paper that keeps five drivers alive against Antonelli’s 340: Russell is 102 behind, Hamilton 111, Verstappen 119, Leclerc 125 and Norris 139. Piastri, 202 adrift, is out.
In practice it could end in Austin. After the United States Grand Prix only 125 points remain, so if Antonelli wins there, Russell fails to score and Hamilton finishes fifth or lower, nobody can catch him. That is a lot to ask in one weekend, but every scenario now runs through Antonelli’s own results rather than his rivals’. Verstappen’s two wins in a row are the story of the autumn, but they have come too late to matter for the title. The current picture is in our F1 standings 2026 and the title permutations.
Austin is next, and Red Bull arrives in form
The United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas is next. Watch whether Red Bull’s pace survives the move from a street circuit to a fast, flowing track, whether Ferrari can settle on one strategy for both cars, and whether Russell can finally take points off his team-mate on a weekend without a grid penalty.
Will Antonelli wrap up the title in Austin, or does Verstappen’s late run make this closer than 102 points suggest? Tell us in the comments.
