Red Bull’s Max Verstappen won an incident-packed sprint race at the Singapore Grand Prix after Mercedes driver George Russell crashed out of the lead.
Russell was leading in tricky conditions, with half the track dry and half wet, when he got a little too wide at the final corner at the end of the first lap.
He lost control of his Mercedes, which spun across the track into the inside wall, before bouncing back again to the outside, the rest of the field somehow avoiding him.
Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton took second having made a superb start from sixth on the grid with team-mate Charles Leclerc third.
A final-lap collision between the McLarens as Lando Norris tried to pass Oscar Piastri at Turn Five promoted Russell’s team-mate Kimi Antonelli to fourth place.
In combination with Russell’s retirement, that extends the Italian’s championship lead to 89 points.
A chaotic race saw the start delayed by 30 minutes by a tropical downpour, and then Verstappen navigating a safety car period following Russell’s accident, a restart, and initial pressure from Hamilton to eventually ease away into a comfortable lead.
It was the Dutchman’s second Formula 1 win in seven days, after his maiden victory this season at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, and the first time he has won in Singapore.
The rain before the start hit only parts of the track. The second sector stayed dry while the first sector, particularly Turns Two and Three, were soaking wet with standing water.
Once the rain abated, the field did two laps behind a safety car to check conditions before racing began with a standing start.
Russell gave himself a golden opportunity to breathe some life into his almost-extinguished title hopes when he beat Verstappen off the line and took the lead into the first corner.
But after leading the first lap, he made a mistake at the final corner.
Russell said: “I just misjudged it, got more power than I was expecting from the battery, got a little wider than I expected and touched the white line. Rule number one in the wet is don’t touch the white line. Very silly mistake.”
