Verstappen’s Singapore Win Left the Title Alone and Blew Up the Fight for Second

Max Verstappen won the Singapore Grand Prix from pole, led all 62 laps and made it look tidy. That is the headline, and it is the least interesting thing that happened at Marina Bay. Kimi Antonelli still leads the championship by 102 points, and nothing on Sunday changed that. What changed is the order of the people behind him: four drivers are now separated by just 23 points in the fight for second, and Red Bull, a team with no wins at all until October 4, is seven points off McLaren in the constructors’ race.

A note on method: the facts below come from official Formula 1 and FIA results, timing and race reports. Anything that is our reading of those facts is labeled Backfire analysis.

What the official record confirms

Verstappen took pole with a 1:31.373, just 0.054s clear of Charles Leclerc, and it was his first pole at Marina Bay. He then led every lap, beating Leclerc by 7.335s, with Antonelli third, 24.573s back. It was his first Singapore win, the 73rd of his career and it came in his 250th start. It also made two in a row: he had won the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia a week earlier, and those are his first two wins of 2026. We had flagged his poor record at this track before the weekend; he cleared it in one go.

Behind the top three came Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Lewis Hamilton, Liam Lawson, Nico Hülkenberg, George Russell and Isack Hadjar. Two details matter for the points. Russell qualified sixth but took a grid penalty for an engine change and started 19th. Hadjar started from the pit lane after a setup change under parc fermé and additional power unit components, and still scored the final point in tenth.

There were two Virtual Safety Car periods. The first came when Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto stopped near the pit-lane exit with a suspected gearbox problem and the car caught fire. The second came when Lance Stroll stopped at Turn 15 with a clutch issue. Leclerc and Antonelli took their second stops under that one; Russell pitted just as it was ending, which limited what he got from it.

What changed: the order behind Mercedes

Backfire analysis: Mercedes had won 11 of the first 15 rounds, and the argument all year had been over who was second best on a given Sunday. Two weeks later Red Bull has back-to-back wins, both cars in the points in Singapore, and 332 constructors’ points, seven behind McLaren. That is a trend, not a verdict. Two races is a small sample, and Ferrari’s own read after Singapore was that Red Bull had slightly more pace across the weekend, not a gulf. But it is enough to reopen the argument about who owns second best. Red Bull’s first win of the season looks less like a one-off now.

Backfire analysis: McLaren is the team that should be uncomfortable. After the race Norris rated McLaren as the fourth-fastest team and said Red Bull has taken a big step, adding that without upgrades the gap will not close. Piastri agreed, while team principal Andrea Stella said the gap can be closed. When both drivers say the quiet part out loud, believe them. McLaren still has two wins this year, but Norris is on 201 points, 20 behind Verstappen, and Piastri is down on 138.

Backfire analysis: Mercedes left Singapore with the weakest points haul of the top four teams (17, against 26 for Ferrari and Red Bull and 22 for McLaren), and it still leads the constructors’ table by 134 over Ferrari. The team said its new update package is harder to set up but has more potential. That reads like a car that has not yet hit its operating window, which should worry rivals more than it worries Mercedes.

Why it happened: three decisions

1. Track position did the heavy lifting. Verstappen defended against Leclerc into Turn 1 and was 2.6s clear by lap 15. By lap 28 his lead over Norris, then second on the road, was 17.9s. He pitted on lap 33, moving from softs to mediums, and kept the lead despite radio problems that forced the team to communicate by pit board. With ten laps to go his margin over Leclerc was just under ten seconds.

Backfire analysis: Marina Bay is a circuit where passing is hard, so pole plus a clean first corner is worth more than a tyre trick. Leclerc then did what a driver on fresh tyres can do: he set the fastest lap of the race, a 1:35.202 on lap 41, and cut the margin from just under ten seconds to 7.3s by the flag. It was not enough to threaten the win, which suggests Verstappen was managing rather than being chased.

2. Ferrari split its strategies, then argued about the second stop. Leclerc started on softs, stopped around lap 25 for mediums and made a second stop under the late VSC. Hamilton started on mediums, was the only driver to stop early (lap 19, for softs) and then tried to run to the end. Ferrari called both cars in under the VSC; Leclerc came in and gained a place, while Hamilton stayed out. The two accounts of why do not match. Hamilton said he decided to stay out and try to hold track position to the end. Team principal Frédéric Vasseur said Hamilton missed the pit entry. Hamilton, who started third, finished sixth, 53.188s behind the winner.

Backfire analysis: Either version leaves Ferrari with the same problem: the call was made in a moment when the team and the driver were not clearly aligned. Hamilton had already been talking about how Ferrari is structured, and this will not help that conversation. The cost is easy to count. Sixth is 8 points; a podium would have been at least 7 more. With second through fifth in the standings separated by 23 points, seven points is an entire race position.

3. Russell paid for a penalty he had already earned. He climbed to 15th by lap 5 and roughly 12th by lap 15 and finished ninth, the best of the drivers who started outside the top ten. But he stalled behind Hülkenberg and, by his own telling, lost the benefit of the VSC stop because it ended as he entered the pit lane. Antonelli, meanwhile, finished third despite track-limits warnings, a black-and-white flag and reported brake and heat concerns, passing both Norris and Hamilton into Turn 16 late on. Hamilton was investigated for that move; no further action was taken.

Backfire analysis: Starting sixth and finishing sixth would have been 8 points for Russell. He took 2. That six-point gap is not a full measure of what the engine penalty cost, because races never replay cleanly, but it is the gap between his qualifying pace and his points. In a fight for second that is 23 points wide, it matters.

The points math

Here is the drivers’ championship after Singapore, with the gap to Antonelli:

And the constructors’ table:

Backfire analysis: Six grands prix remain, so 150 points are still on offer from the races themselves, before any sprint points (we could not confirm sprint weekends for the remaining rounds). Antonelli leads Russell by 102, so he cannot be caught unless something goes badly wrong, but he cannot clinch easily either. The earliest he can do it is Austin, and only by winning while Russell scores one point or fewer. The more realistic story is the scramble beneath him: Ferrari is 112 points clear of Red Bull in the constructors’ race, so catching them would take a net swing of about 19 points per race. Third is the realistic prize, and the seven-point gap to McLaren is within one race result.

What to watch next

The season resumes with the United States Grand Prix in Austin on October 23–25, followed by Mexico (October 30–November 1). Four things are worth tracking.

First, whether Red Bull’s pace holds on a track that does not reward pole position as heavily as Marina Bay does. Second, whether McLaren brings the upgrades Norris said it needs, and whether they work. Third, how Ferrari handles its next strategy split now that its own people have given conflicting accounts of the last one. Fourth, whether Mercedes finds the operating window for its update package, because a car that is easier to set up turns the pace Antonelli and Russell already have into points.

Sources: official results, timing and reports from Formula 1 (grid, drivers’ standings, constructors’ standings) and the FIA race summary. Related: our Singapore Grand Prix Notebook.

About the Author

Kyle Matthews

Administrator

Kyle Matthews is a staff writer at Backfire Racing, focusing on NASCAR coverage with additional reporting on Formula 1, IndyCar, and endurance racing.

View All Posts