The 10th time was the charm for Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who finally claimed his maiden Singapore Grand Prix victory on Sunday (11 Oct), 11 years after making his debut at the Marina Bay Street Circuit in 2015.
The 29-year-old Dutchman finished 7.335 seconds ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, while Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli took third, 24.573 seconds behind the winner.
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For Verstappen, it capped an almost spotless weekend in Singapore.
He had already topped Sprint Qualifying, won Singapore’s first-ever F1 Sprint race, and secured pole position for Sunday’s Grand Prix before leading all 62 laps of the main event.
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The victory also marked Verstappen’s second consecutive Grand Prix triumph, coming just a week after he won the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia on 4 Oct, his first win of the 2026 season.
For a driver with four world titles and 73 Grand Prix victories to his name, Singapore had remained one of the few stubborn blanks on Verstappen’s résumé.
That all changed on Sunday, although his long-awaited victory didn’t get off to the smoothest start.
When the lights went out to start the race, Verstappen, who started from pole position, found himself under immediate pressure from Leclerc as the Ferrari driver pulled alongside him as they approached the first turn.
As the lights went out, Verstappen, who started from pole position, faced immediate pressure from Leclerc, who pulled alongside him as they approached the first corner.
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Speaking at the post-race press conference, Verstappen admitted that something felt off with his car even before the race began.
“Before releasing the clutch, it didn’t feel good,” he said, adding that he wanted to investigate what had gone wrong with the engine.
“I think that did hurt my start,” he explained, describing his getaway as “not fantastic”.
Despite the early hiccups, Verstappen was understandably delighted to finally tick Singapore off his list.
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“It was a bit of a relief, of course, to win here,” he said. “When you win for the first time on a track, it’s always very special and nice.”
But the victory came with a healthy dose of exhaustion, too.
“I was probably also very happy that it was over,” he quipped. “The race was long enough and I was sweating a lot.”
Still, Verstappen had been determined not to let his early troubles get in the way of victory.
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Asked how he managed to hold off Leclerc, the Dutchman made his intentions clear: “I was only here to win.”
He explained that he had deliberately made it difficult for Leclerc to get past at the first corner, crediting his rival’s experience for helping them “keep it clean”.
“It was actually really nice,” he said of their battle. “It’s always very hard to judge what is the right braking point, but I think it just worked out.”
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And from what MS News observed at the post-race press conference, there appeared to be no hard feelings between the two drivers.
While waiting for Antonelli to arrive, Verstappen and Leclerc were seen chatting animatedly, seemingly unfazed by their earlier battle on the Singapore circuit.
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While Leclerc had come agonisingly close to snatching the lead at the start, he ultimately had to settle for second place, securing his first podium finish since before the summer break.
The Ferrari driver admitted to having mixed feelings about the result, describing himself as “happy but not super happy”.
“I believed in it until the very end, but unfortunately it wasn’t quite enough,” he said, acknowledging that Verstappen had been the quicker driver.
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Meanwhile, Antonelli’s journey to third place was considerably more eventful.
The 20-year-old Mercedes driver managed to overtake both Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton in the closing stages, despite struggling with overheating brakes that nearly sent him crashing into a wall.
To make matters worse, a faulty sensor meant his team could not monitor the brakes’ temperature.
“But they were hot because I could even smell it,” he recalled, adding that the experience was “not very pleasant”.
Source: Sutton Images
Still, the podium finish puts the championship leader within reach of securing his first F1 world title at the upcoming United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas.
As for Verstappen, he seemed more interested in enjoying himself for the rest of the season than worrying about the championship standings.
But looking ahead to the notoriously bumpy Circuit of the Americas in Austin, he joked that he might need some new body parts: “I’ll probably need to order a new spine.”
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Featured image courtesy of Getty Images and LAT Images.