Nine retirements, drama for Russell and Verstappen triumphs against a great Hamilton in a crazy sprint in Singapore

Many criticized that the F1 decided to hold a sprint race in the F1 Singapore GPa mousey route where it is difficult to overtake. But the rain changed everything. What should have been a procession, became a short survival event, with initial chaos, a safety car and final victory of Max Verstappen after the Russell drama.

The start of the sprint event was delayed by a strong water storm that left a very complicated track situation. Not only because of how wet the first sector was, soaked. There was another problem: sector two was completely dry.

So, when the race started, with everyone riding intermediate tires, those tires would perform in the first and third sectors, but would destroy themselves in the central part of the track. It seemed like the perfect storm so that there could be chaos and even strategic diversity with stops during a task that was reduced to 20 laps.

The fight for the runner-up heats up

There was the first, initial drama for several cars. But not the latter, since the drivers who held out on the asphalt were able to resist with those tires, among them, a Max Verstappen who benefited from a mistake by George that will haunt him.

Verstappen thus added 8 points of the winner and is 40 behind Russell’s runner-up, in 5th place. He surpassed Norris overall and is just one point behind Leclerc in 4th place. He is 25 behind the third of a Hamilton who with his second place was only 15 behind George’s 2nd place.

The fate of the future champion, Kimi

Before them, Kimi Antonelli extends his lead in the World Championship by a few points by taking advantage of Russell’s mistake. He now has an 89 margin over George after another race in which he was the smartest in the class: he started 7th, he avoided mistakes, he was cautious, he knew how to resist without failures and he had the luck of the champion (once again) Seeing how ahead of him, Norris threw out Piastri on the last lap and gained two positions in one fell swoop to finish 4th.

Russell’s serious mistake: dangerous accident

The Englishman, who has had a hard time this year with the new cars, seeing himself clearly surpassed by his teammate Kimi Antonelli, had an opportunity to scratch some points from the Italian, the clear leader of the World Championship. Above all, after the great start he had in the wet. He passed Verstappen with a better start on a difficult asphalt and had a free track to control from the lead. But the failure came.

On lap 5, the Briton stepped on the white line under acceleration and lost the car at the exit of the last corner. He crashed into the interior barriers on the finish line. It could have been very dangerous, since with poor visibility due to the spray, his car bounced off the wall and crossed the track with his pursuers accelerating. Luckily, no one hit him.

“It was a big miscalculation. I came out of the last corner and had more battery power than I thought. I went a little wide and when I stepped on the white line, it was unrecoverable,” Russell explained.

The sprint race was over for Russell, the safety car came in and Max Verstappen assumed the lead against Lewis Hamilton who beat him at the start. He remembered his best days with a dream start in very complicated conditions. He was 6th on the grid and passed the two McLarens and his teammate Leclerc to take second to his Monegasque teammate. Brutal.

Festival of abandonments: positions for Alonso and Sainz

At the same time as Russell’s accident, another incident occurred: Perez touched Stroll and both had to leave. And after the safety car there were more abandonments. Hadjar had to park his car with engine braking problems. Colapinto also had to park his car and Lindblad made a piloting error. All of them were positions for Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz, who gained positions. So, Fernando Alonso, who started 15th and lost a starting position, moved to 12th place.

And on lap 7, The race resumed and Carlos Sainz gained more places with the abandonments of Bortoleto and Bottas. Carlos moved to 13th after the Asturian. And finally, after a abandonment in the last lap of Piastri, the race ended with Alonso 11th and Carlos, 12th.

Norris messes with his partner

In that resumption, only Bearman took out his claw and pressed to pass to Gasly in a risky and at the same time spectacular way. Upstairs there was calm. Nobody wanted to risk it. The focus of attention was on what the intermediate tires were going to hold up to, but in the end, they did not collapse. Everyone was able to finish with those tires, with Max winning without problems against a Hamilton who could no longer attack him.

It seemed like the race was going to end without a hitch. But then came the McLaren drama. Norris forgot the ‘Papaya Rules’ and attacked Piastri from the inside fighting in fourth position. He was optimistic and touched his teammate on the last lap, something that is always written in red in the internal rules of each team. They were both going to score, and those spoils of points went to waste. Both spun and Piastri was forced to abandon. Lando, for his part, returned to the track to be 8th and score a single point for the team.

Thus, Alonso and Sainz gained one more place. Fernando finished 11th, close to the points (in sprint he finished up to 8th) and Sainz, 12th despite starting 22nd in a race in which there were up to nine abandonments. A madness that lacked spice in the final fight for victory. There was no one who wanted to make it exciting with a change to dry tires. It was too risky on such a short date. There was much more to lose than gain, as doing so and having an accident made it difficult for anyone to repair the car before qualifying. And in that context, Max dominated at will after George’s mistake.