Singapore Grand Prix · Sprint · Round 17
Verstappen wins the 2026 Singapore sprint from pole, and the gap to Ferrari is down to a point
Max Verstappen took sprint pole, led every one of the 20 laps and had the best race pace of the front three. It is the latest step in a five-round run that has hauled him back into the Ferrari pair's fight.
Why did Verstappen win?
Three things, in order. He was quickest in sprint qualifying, by 0.120s from George Russell. The lap-one retirements and two neutralisations reshuffled almost everything behind him but never touched the front: he was first at the end of every lap. And once racing resumed for good on lap 7, his median clean lap of 1:46.649 was the best of the three front runners.
Lewis Hamilton finished second and set the session's fastest lap on the final lap; Charles Leclerc was third. The race was run on intermediates throughout, and it was decided in the 14 laps after the second restart.
Friday · Sprint qualifying
Where did Verstappen find his pole lap?
Verstappen's 1:31.156 came on a set of softs two laps old, on his 14th lap of the session. Russell was second for Mercedes on 1:31.276, Leclerc third on 1:31.399. Hamilton qualified sixth, 0.546s off, in a session the timing feed records as dry, with the track at 41–44°C.
Split into sectors, the lap was won at both ends. Verstappen had the best first and third sectors of the three drivers in this story; Leclerc had the best middle sector, by 0.204s, but gave back more than that elsewhere.
Verstappen's pole was built in sectors 1 and 3; Leclerc was quickest only through the middle
Best sectors per driver, sprint qualifying. Source: VizF1 timing (OpenF1).
| Driver | Q3 lap | Gap | Trap |
|---|---|---|---|
 Verstappen | 1:31.156 | pole | 308 |
 Leclerc (P3) | 1:31.399 | +0.243 | 307 |
| Hamilton (P6) | 1:31.702 | +0.546 | 307 |
Speed trap in km/h, highest on any lap.
Lap 1
How did the front row change on the first lap?
Verstappen led the opening lap in 1:52.133. Behind him, the order was rewritten by retirements rather than passes.
George Russell, second in sprint qualifying for Mercedes, was out on lap 1. So were Sergio Perez in the Cadillac and Lance Stroll in the Aston Martin, who did not complete a lap.
At the end of lap 1 Hamilton was second and Leclerc third. Hamilton had qualified sixth; the timing feed carries no grid column for this sprint, so we can't say which of those places he took on the road and which were handed to him by Russell's exit and any grid changes.
Positions never moved at the front: first, second and third at the end of every lap
Position at the end of each lap. Source: VizF1 timing (OpenF1).
Laps 2–6
Did the stoppages give anyone a way past?
No, though there were plenty of chances. The race was neutralised on lap 2, stopped with a red flag after laps 3 and 4, and neutralised again on lap 6. Seven cars were out by the end of lap 6.
- Lap 2SC/VSCThe leaders all pitted under the neutralisation and kept their order: Verstappen lost 18.5s in the pit lane, Hamilton and Leclerc 18.4s each. All three went back out on fresh intermediates.
- Lap 2Isack Hadjar, Verstappen's Red Bull team-mate, and Franco Colapinto (Alpine) both retired.
- Laps 3–4Red flagThe field stopped. Every car took new tyres, which under a red flag costs nothing, so these are not strategic stops. The top six were in the same order at the end of lap 4 as before the lap-2 stops.
- Lap 6SC/VSCNeutralised again. This time the top six all stayed out, and were in the same order at the end of lap 8.
- Lap 6Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi) and Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac) retired.
Only 14 of the 20 laps were raced green, and seven cars were gone by the end of lap 6
Track status and retirements by lap. Source: VizF1 timing (OpenF1).
That left a 14-lap sprint from the lap-6 restart, with everyone on intermediates and nobody due to stop again.
Laps 7–15
How did Verstappen build his lead after the restart?
By being quicker than Hamilton on every one of the next nine laps (on lap 9 by just 0.004s), and quicker than Leclerc on all of them. Between laps 7 and 15 Verstappen's lap times stayed inside a band of 0.761s, from 1:46.112 to 1:46.873.
Adding up the lap-time differences from lap 7, Verstappen had put 4.0s into Hamilton by the end of lap 15 and 5.2s into Leclerc. Hamilton's laps 12 to 14 were his slowest of the stint, all three in the 1:47.3s–1:47.6s range.
Verstappen's laps were the steadiest of the three; Hamilton dropped off in the middle of the stint and came back at the end
Lap times, laps 7–20 (all clean racing laps after the lap-6 neutralisation). Source: VizF1 timing (OpenF1).
| Driver | Median clean lap | Gap | Avg throttle |
|---|---|---|---|
 Verstappen | 1:46.649 | — | 44% |
 Hamilton | 1:46.781 | +0.132 | 51% |
 Leclerc | 1:47.375 | +0.726 | 50% |
Median over 13 clean laps each. Average throttle is the mean throttle position over the lap, as the feed reports it; it describes how the car was driven, not why.
Laps 16–20
Could Hamilton have caught him?
Not in five laps. Hamilton was faster than Verstappen on four of the last five, and over that run took back 2.2s of the 4.0s he had lost. At the flag, by the same lap-time sums, he was still about 1.9s further back than at the lap-6 restart.
His quickest laps came at the very end: 1:45.626 on lap 18 was already faster than anything Verstappen did all race.
On lap 20 he went quicker still, 1:45.457, the fastest lap of the sprint and 0.560s faster than Verstappen's best, set a lap earlier.
Verstappen's lead over Hamilton peaked at 4.0s on lap 15; Hamilton took back more than half of it
Cumulative lap-time difference from lap 7, computed by VizF1 from the lap times in the feed. It is the change since the restart, not the official interval. Source: VizF1 timing (OpenF1).
Leclerc went the other way. From lap 16 every one of his laps was in the 1:47.8s–1:49.7s range, and Verstappen's margin over him grew on every lap after the restart, to 15.4s by these sums at the flag.
The other Ferrari
Why was the fastest car through the trap only third?
Leclerc carried 7 km/h more through the speed trap than either Verstappen or Hamilton, who both topped out at 278 km/h. That did not turn into lap time. His best lap, 1:46.738 on lap 11, was 1.281s off Hamilton's fastest, and his median clean lap was 0.726s slower than Verstappen's.
The data says what the car did, not why: the feed shows Leclerc's lap times rising from lap 16 onwards, but nothing in it explains the drop.
- Leclerc beat Hamilton in sprint qualifying (P3 to P6) but finished behind him in the sprint.
- Verstappen was ahead of both Ferraris in both sessions.
- Ferrari took 13 points from the sprint to Red Bull's 8.
Result
What does the win change in the championship?
Verstappen took 8 points, Hamilton 7 and Leclerc 6. On VizF1's tally of every race and sprint so far, that leaves Verstappen fifth on 196, one point behind Leclerc and 25 behind Hamilton in third. Sunday's Grand Prix is not yet in these totals.
The bigger story is the run that led here. After the Chinese Grand Prix, Verstappen was ninth with 8 points. Since the Dutch Grand Prix, round 12, he has scored 84: one more than the championship leader, Kimi Antonelli (83), and twice as many as either Ferrari driver.
Verstappen has outscored both Ferraris, and matched Antonelli, over the last five rounds
Points from the Italian Grand Prix (round 13) to the Singapore sprint, computed by VizF1 from race and sprint results.
From 33 points behind Leclerc after Miami to one point behind him now
Cumulative points by round; round 17 includes the Singapore sprint only. Computed by VizF1 from race and sprint results.
| Driver | Pts | Behind leader |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Kimi Antonelli | 325 | — |
| 2 · George Russell | 236 | 89 |
| 3 · Lewis Hamilton | 221 | 104 |
| 4 · Charles Leclerc | 197 | 128 |
| 5 · Max Verstappen | 196 | 129 |
| 6 · Lando Norris | 189 | 136 |
Drivers' standings after the Singapore sprint, computed by VizF1. F1's official records (Ergast) had not yet added the sprint when this was written: they showed Verstappen on 188.
Antonelli's lead is 129 points over Verstappen. The title is not the fight Verstappen is in; third place is, and on this form it is within reach. For more on the season so far, see the VizF1 editorial archive and the Singapore Grand Prix race page.
Sources & method
Where do these numbers come from?
- Race page: 2026 Singapore Grand Prix on VizF1.
- Timing data: FastF1 (F1 live timing) and OpenF1, for laps, sectors, speed traps, stints, weather and results.
- Championship standings are computed by VizF1 from those race and sprint results and run to the Singapore sprint; the Grand Prix is not included.
- "Time gained since the restart" is the running sum of lap-time differences from lap 7, not the official timing interval. The feed's own finishing margin for this sprint is not usable, so we don't quote one.
- Clean laps exclude the opening lap, in- and out-laps, and neutralised laps plus the restart lap after them.
- The feed logs every car on intermediates for the whole sprint while its weather log reads dry; we report both as recorded.
- Photos: Choo Yut Shing on Flickr, 1 and 2, CC BY 2.0. Team marks and driver portraits from VizF1's race data.