F1 in Singapore: The Fastest New Car Is Now Here

Also, F1's final speed marked our first true wet race of the year.

Also, the F1 final was our first real wet race of the year.

The long 2026 Formula 1 season is entering its final stage. The sport took to the streets of Singapore on Sunday night, but Saturday also saw action. This Grand Prix weekend was also the final of six sprint races this year. The night race may be one of the best shows in modern F1. From the overhead views, the path turns into a bright and luminous strip in the darkness of the flyovers and skyscrapers of the city-state. At ground level, cars flash bright sparks from their titanium blocks as drivers flirt with approaching walls. As tracks go, the 90-degree bends and concrete-walled streets were the last thing away from Malaysia's abrasive asphalt and abundant runoff. But tropical heat and humidity were constant due to the proximity of both places to the equator.

In Malaysia (which was still technically the Bahrain GP), pre-race rain disrupted things badly. On Saturday morning in Singapore, shortly before the start of the sprint, history seemed to rhyme as the skies opened up. With standing water at points along the course, the sprint was delayed by 30 minutes. The sprint format, where a short extra race replaces a practice session the day before the main event, is not favored by drivers and teams. For one thing, winning a Saturday sprint carries little prestige. And with just a few hours to go, risk-taking is avoided lest someone wrecks the car and spoils Sunday's race a day early.

And in Singapore, as with most street courses, the proximity of unyielding obstacles that line the course means there are real consequences and punishment for getting it even slightly wrong.

What happened to George Russell. The Mercedes driver was crowned champion this season, but those hopes were dashed by a combination of the car's unreliability and his young team-mate, Kimi Antonelli, who looks to be a generational talent. A win in Azerbaijan in September was Russell's chance to settle with Antonelli, but he failed to finish in Malaysia and his pace didn't last long.

It started well. The track was still too wet for the soft tyres, so the entire field was lined up on medium tread tyres. Compared to Max Verstappen's Red Bull Mercedes, Russell had a much better start from second on the grid and he stole the lead. A lap later, Russell's pace ran out and his car bent and broke after misjudging the final corner. On a wet race track, any painted section becomes very slippery, something that goes double for street tracks. Russell said after the fact: "I went a little bit wide and then I touched the white line. The No. 1 rule in the rain is don't touch the white line. That's a stupid mistake — overconfidence. I think it's my first crash of the year. It's annoying to come from that position."

Verstappen took advantage of Russell's mistake and inherited the lead. For a while, Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari looked like a threat. But the intermediate tires would begin to overheat as the track dried, which soon affected Hamilton and fellow Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc. At the end of 20 laps, he crossed the finish line first. Surprisingly, it was Verstappen's first victory in Singapore. Although, that being said, he didn't exactly see it that way.

"I want to win tomorrow," Verstappen said after the race. "I don't see it as a victory in terms of winning a grand prix, you know. So we should have a good qualifying race. I think it's going to be very close with a lot of cars, and we just have to try and make sure, of course, we're the best of them. But yeah, I hope it's a good battle."

His Red Bull has recently been updated and, combined with a power unit that has the most powerful V6 in the field (if not perhaps the best hybrid system), it may well be the fastest car on the grid, at least in Verstappen's capable hands. A few hours later, he won pole position in Sunday's qualifier. As with the sprint finish order, he would have two Ferraris behind him, although Leclerc was ahead of Hamilton.

It was a complete victory for Verstappen, even with the complexity of the radio problems - he could hear his engineer, but his responses were inaudible. His speed and tire management were such that he was able to stop for tires and leave the pits without losing the lead," said Verstappen. "The car was really good on the tires. I could manage them really well. But to be honest, I think it was one of the first times I've driven in clean air here in Singapore, so I guess that's good too. And yeah, it was just a great weekend for us."

The last three races have two wins and one second for Verstappen. "I really think, of course, our car has taken a very good step forward. But at the end of the day, yes, it's just more drivable and more predictable. That's what I wanted and needed from the car to find that last step to fight at the front," he said.

A resurgent Verstappen, currently fourth, could threaten second place in the standings by the end of the season. Not that he really cares. "Hopefully we can carry that momentum forward. We don't really have anything to win in the championship, do we? I think Kimi is miles ahead. For me personally, I don't care if I'm second, third or fourth. Like, yeah, it doesn't matter. But I just want to enjoy it until the end, you know, try to make it one day," he said.

With both sprint and race poles, and sprint and race wins, it was almost a perfect weekend for Verstappen, who just missed out on fastest lap to Leclerc, who finished second. It should be a dual platform for Ferrari. Hamilton was not as fast as Leclerc and started the race with an alternative strategy, using medium tires instead of soft.

That didn't last long though, and Hamilton stopped on lap 17 and went soft. With most of the 62-lap race still to run, it created the potential for a very long afternoon. And when Lance Stroll's Aston Martin broke down as usual, prompting a virtual safety car period, Hamilton inexplicably flouted team orders to follow Leclerc into the pits to solve the problem with a cheap stop. Staying clear of increasingly failing tires left the seven-time champion a sitting duck in the cars as he finished third and later apologized to his team on the radio.

As we've discussed more than once this season, perhaps the ultimate rule as an F1 driver is "don't hit your teammate." It's not at all surprising that we've seen teammates fight a lot – if the cars are ranked for speed, and a team has two drivers who are roughly the same, if they both perform well, they should qualify in similar positions and therefore find themselves racing together. Haas' Oliver Biermann showed the right way to do it, going side-by-side with team-mate Esteban Oken for several corners on lap 3, a battle that was unfortunately relegated to a small picture-in-picture window in the broadcast. (A few laps later, Beerman followed that up with a late move on the Williams of Carlos Sainz.)

Sometimes, we see situations like Ferrari in recent races, including this one, splitting strategies between two cars but with the newer, faster car. The tires stuck behind the car on the older, slower tires. Sometimes the front driver does what's best for the team and lets them pass without a fight - Hamilton did this late in the race when a much faster Leclerc on much newer tires needed to catch up.

What no fan or team boss wants to see is both their cars trying to get a piece of tarmac. That's exactly what happened to the McLaren pair during Saturday's sprint. The orange cars were fourth (Piastre) and fifth (Norris) in the final lap of the race, when Norris decided to reverse the order. The pair made contact, Piastri's car broke down and Norris finished eighth. Nine points became one for the team and Norris had given the team extra work to fix the other car in time for qualifying.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella called the incident "unacceptable" and may have read the story of the riot to his driver. Norris was duly chastised the next day, both offering to help Piastri in the race if possible, and telling reporters after the race: "I can't do what I did. I should never have done it in the first place, even if the momentum had gone on. I just have to think more about the team I'm representing than myself. It was a mistake on my part, and I didn't let Rees down."

With this Asian leg complete, the F1 circus now moves to the Americas, starting at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. The odds that Antonelli could win the title would put Texas ahead of its nearest rival by 125 points. Currently, it's George Russell who is 102 points behind, with Hamilton in third on 111 and Verstappen in fourth, 119 behind Antonelli.

A win is worth 25 points, so it's possible, but it would require more bad luck from Russell. According to my terrible calculations, if Russell finishes ninth and scores just two points for Antonelli's win, his championship hopes are over. But if he finishes eighth and scores four points or better, his hopes will stay alive at least until the next round in Mexico.

There are similar elimination calculations to drop Hamilton and Verstappen, and due to their greater points deficit than the leader, higher finishing positions are required to stay in them. Given Verstappen's recent form and Mercedes' inability to promote themselves very well, the prospect of a third straight win for Red Bull is in the offing in a few weeks. And Lewis Hamilton has been on the podium nine times at COTA, so he knows how to get results there, even if a Ferrari victory looks unlikely.

Ares will be in Austin, where I hope to learn more about how teams plan for these complex powerplants and see who is willing to talk about those carbon-free synthetic fuels that sports were so eager to talk about just a few years ago.

Jonathan is the automotive editor at Ars Technica. He has a bachelor's degree and a doctorate in the field of pharmacology. In 2014, he decided to indulge his lifelong passion for cars by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute to start auto coverage at Ars Technica. He lives in Washington DC.