Marina Bay had always been the one stop on the calendar that refused Max Verstappen. On Sunday that changed. The Dutchman led every lap of the Singapore Grand Prix, beating Charles Leclerc by just over seven seconds, and made it two dominant wins in eight days after Red Bull’s breakthrough in Malaysia. He had already taken Saturday’s sprint.
The race was effectively decided before the first braking zone. Leclerc launched better and dived alongside, but Verstappen leaned on him towards the pit wall and the Ferrari driver had to back out of Turn One. Leclerc hung on within a second for a handful of laps, then watched the Red Bull slowly vanish into the night.
Behind them, Ferrari’s afternoon unravelled around Lewis Hamilton. When a virtual safety car came out on lap 39, Leclerc and Kimi Antonelli dived in for cheap stops, but Hamilton stayed out, hoping to make a single set of soft tyres last 44 laps. The gamble failed. With the rubber fading, he was picked off in the final laps first by Antonelli, then by the two McLarens of Norris and Piastri, and dropped to sixth, later apologising to the team for his call.
That turn of events matters most to the title race. Antonelli, nursing brake trouble at one stage, took third, while his Mercedes team-mate George Russell could only reach ninth after starting 19th because of a grid penalty. The 20-year-old Italian now leads by 102 points with six races left.
He could become Formula 1’s youngest-ever champion as early as the United States Grand Prix in Austin on 25 October, provided he wins there and his pursuers have a poor day. Told about the possibility, Antonelli sounded surprised: “Can I? Really?”
