Motorsports

Max Verstappen’s sprint race win was ​Dutchman’s first of any kind in Singapore as he finished ahead of Lewis Hamilton.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen won a wet and wild Singapore Grand Prix sprint race on Saturday after George Russell crashed his Mercedes while leading at the end of the opening lap.

Four-time Formula One champion Verstappen held off Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton to win by 2.50 seconds, with Charles Leclerc third as the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri touched and spun on the final lap while in fourth and fifth.

A heavy shower 10 minutes before the scheduled start meant a delay of 30 minutes.

All cars began on intermediate tyres, with some sectors of the Marina Bay Street Circuit much drier than others as the field embarked on two formation laps behind the safety car.

The eventual standing start saw Russell start on the front row alongside pole-sitter Verstappen and it was the Englishman who got away better.

His lead was short-lived as he lost control after touching a treacherous white line on the final bend of the opening lap. He slid sideways into the pit lane wall, bringing out a safety car.

It was another setback in a season of bad luck for Russell, who will start from the back of the grid in Sunday’s Grand Prix because of engine penalties.

“It was a miscalculation,” Russell told Sky Sports. “Came through the corner, had more battery deployment than I thought, pushed me a little bit wider than I hoped and went on to the white line.

“Silly mistake. Big consequences.”

It left Hamilton, who had a brilliant start from sixth on the grid, in second place, having leapfrogged Ferrari teammate Leclerc and the two McLarens.

The big beneficiary of Norris and Piastri’s “papaya spat” on the last lap was championship leader Kimi Antonelli, who inherited fourth place in his Mercedes having started seventh on the grid.

Fifth was RB’s Liam Lawson, sixth was the Haas of Oliver Bearman, seventh was Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg and Norris got going again to limp home in eighth and round out the points scorers.

Drivers faced glitches at the race in Malaysia, where Lewis Hamilton had to stop and restart his car on the track.

Formula One’s governing body has promised a full investigation into a software bug that caused chaos and forced the start of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia to be aborted, with drivers feeling like they were in battery-powered cars made of Lego.

Ferrari’s seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull’s four-time champion and eventual race winner Max Verstappen were among several affected by the glitch on a formation lap after torrential rain and a long delay at Malaysia’s steamy Sepang circuit on Sunday.

Verstappen compared the experience to a “Lego race” held at Silverstone before the British Grand Prix while Hamilton, the sport’s most successful driver of all time, had to stop his car on track and restart it in what he said was a career first.

The episode was the latest in a difficult first season for the new era of cars and engines, with drivers at the pinnacle of motorsport unhappy since the opening race with the power units’ increased electrical component and the need for energy management.

FIA said afterwards that “an unprecedented combination of low engine speed, low-grip conditions, wet-weather energy management settings and the Sepang circuit’s sector configuration led to an unintended loss of power for a number of cars”.

“As a result, the FIA technical department removed the energy limit constraint in the affected sectors through an updated software release distributed to all competitors during the race delay caused by heavy rain, enabling teams to make the necessary changes to the power unit before the start of the race.

“This issue had not been detected by the FIA or the teams during testing or during the laps to the grid. The FIA, together with the teams and power unit manufacturers, will undertake a full review of the issue.”

The FIA’s single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis told reporters the lack of preseason testing in wet conditions had played a part in the chaos.

“Some cars went very slowly, almost came to a standstill. There was a bit of a concertina effect between cars, and some cars almost stopped completely,” he said. “That bug prevented the power from being redeployed, and for the cars to start again.

“I think if we had had a bit more testing, we probably would have managed to catch it in time, and not have such a situation.”

Sepang was the first race weekend of the season with wet conditions, although the track dried during the race.

“Sometimes things fall through the net and people learn, and you do a better job next time,” Tombazis said.

George Russell wins Azerbaijan Grand Prix for eighth career F1 victory and first since the Austrian Grand Prix in June.

George Russell held off Red Bull’s four-time world champion Max Verstappen to complete a lights-to-flag win in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix for Mercedes, with teammate Kimi Antonelli limiting the damage to his championship lead by finishing fifth.

Russell took the flag 0.196 seconds ahead of the flying Dutchman, who started eighth but crossed the line nearly side-by-side with his Mercedes rival after two safety car phases turned a cruise into a fight for survival for the Briton.

Frenchman Isack Hadjar, who was handed a contract extension by Red Bull earlier this week and had missed the last three races with a wrist injury, completed the podium on his racing return.

The win around the Baku street track was the eighth of Russell’s career, the third of the season and his first since the Austrian Grand Prix at the end of June.

It allowed him to close the gap in the overall standings to Italian championship leader Antonelli by 15 points to 66 after 15 rounds.

“It’s amazing to be back on the top step of the podium,” said Russell.

“Every race since the (summer) break I’ve gone from strength to strength and I feel more like myself again.”

Antonelli had started 16th after a rare error saw him crash out of Friday’s qualifying.

His drive on Saturday was less like his Monza charge — where he went from 19th to first — and more of a slow-burn recovery.

Charles Leclerc took fourth for Ferrari ahead of the 20-year-old Italian. His seven-time world champion teammate Lewis Hamilton was sixth.

Racing Bulls rookie Arvid Lindblad finished seventh. Esteban Ocon took eighth ahead of teammate Oliver Bearman in a double points finish for Haas.

Carlos Sainz rounded out the top 10 for Williams.