SINGAPORE — Max Verstappen delivered a perfect weekend at the Marina Bay Circuit, taking victory from pole position in the Singapore Grand Prix for his second win in a row after also winning the final sprint event of the campaign. The Red Bull driver has climbed two places from sixth to fourth in the drivers' championship, though he remains 119 points behind leader Kimi Antonelli, who finished third to extend his advantage over Mercedes team-mate George Russell to 102 points after Russell finished ninth.
Verstappen secured pole and victory in both the sprint and the grand prix, and once Russell crashed out of the sprint on Saturday there was barely a moment where he looked like losing control of either race. Ferrari extracted the maximum on offer as his closest challengers, with third in the sprint followed by second in the grand prix about as much as the team could realistically have asked for.
Antonelli produced another hugely mature weekend. The Mercedes championship leader finished fourth in the sprint and qualified fourth before fighting his way onto the grand prix podium late on, despite dealing with brake concerns and flirting too often with track limits. McLaren endured a costly sprint collision between team-mates; the instigator recovered to finish fourth on Sunday, probably the maximum the team had on outright pace, while the victim — Oscar Piastri — started seventh, overcame a slow puncture that forced an extra stop and still chased down and passed Lewis Hamilton for fifth.
Elsewhere, Racing Bulls' Liam Lawson impressed with fifth in the sprint and seventh in the grand prix from ninth on the grid, while Audi took points with seventh in the sprint and eighth on Sunday, holding Russell behind late on. Russell had shown the pace to challenge — fastest in practice, second in sprint qualifying and sensational off the line to lead the sprint before throwing it into the wall at the end of lap one — but recovered excellently from 19th on the grand prix grid to ninth. Haas' Oliver Bearman also delivered a useful weekend with sixth in the sprint after a smart move on Pierre Gasly, while one driver who ran in the podium places for much of Sunday saw his decision to stay out on worn tyres backfire to drop him to sixth. The podium followed Antonelli's late brake scare on the Singapore grid earlier in the weekend, after Verstappen had capitalised on McLaren's clash that cost points in the sprint.