Verstappen Finally Cracks Singapore at the 10th Try — While Ferrari Serves Up a Strategy Soap Opera
Ten attempts, three runner-up finishes and four podiums later, Max Verstappen finally has a Singapore Grand Prix win to his name. He topped every session of the weekend — sprint qualifying, the sprint, qualifying and the race itself — on his 250th grand prix start, a result that lifts him to fourth in the drivers’ standings.
Behind him, Ferrari provided the weekend’s actual theatre. Charles Leclerc brought the car home second, while teammate Lewis Hamilton, started on mediums against Leclerc’s softs, missed his pit window under a Virtual Safety Car and was left to manage a fading set of tyres. He slipped three places and finished sixth, taking full blame and apologising to the team over the radio.
Kimi Antonelli rounded out the podium in third and now leads George Russell by 102 points in the title race, with a first championship within reach as early as the next round in the United States. Russell himself, starting from the back after a power unit component change, crashed into the pit wall during the wet sprint and limped home ninth on Sunday. McLaren had its own mess to clean up too — Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri collided at Turn 5 on the final sprint lap, eliminating Piastri and spinning Norris down to eighth. Stewards took no action, but team boss Andrea Stella didn’t hide his frustration with how it played out.
Source: Formula1.com (https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/singapore-lowdown-all-the-key-moments-as-verstappen-dominates-and-ferrari-face-strategy-turmoil.08P4aNzUgbtUZ7GnJ9njb)
