Singapore: Verstappen wins the wet Sprint and says it should not be run here
The winner rejects the format at the very track where he won. And the McLarens, within sight of the flag, take points off themselves.
Max Verstappen wins the Singapore Sprint from pole, on a track left wet by rain that fell before the start. It is not a straightforward race. Verstappen admits he got the start wrong again, and George Russell gets past him immediately.
The move does not last. On the same lap Russell goes off and Verstappen is back in front. Russell says he got more power than expected from the battery and touched the white line; he admits to driving over-confidently. From lap 2 to lap 6 the race runs behind the Safety Car.
Lewis Hamilton moves up to second on the opening lap and does not move from there. At the flag Hamilton is 2.591 seconds behind, and on the final lap he sets the fastest time of the Sprint, 1:45.457. He says he overheated the front-right tyre after his early push, and then brought it back.
Charles Leclerc finishes third, well behind. Leclerc says he struggled from mid-race onwards, with an aggressive balance and a weak front end. Hamilton, after the race, adds that in the dry it would have been a boring race: it was the rain that brought it to life.
On the final lap Lando Norris attacks Oscar Piastri and the two McLarens touch. Norris finishes eighth and keeps a point, while Piastri retires. Norris defends his right to try, Piastri says he did not see him at the apex. The stewards find that both contributed to the incident and take no action.
Verstappen, after his win, says a Sprint should not be run on tracks where overtaking is impossible. Under the current power unit rules, he adds, Overtake Mode hardly helps at all. He says it having just won, while the wet Sprint tells us little about the dry pace of Sunday.