Why the Singapore Grand Prix remains Max Verstappen’s only winless F1 track

Remarkably, the Marina Bay Street Circuit in Singapore is the only venue on the current F1 calendar where Max Verstappen hasn’t tasted victory.

The four-time world champion has won at least once at the other 23 tracks, making Singapore an unusual outlier.

Even for Red Bull in recent years, Singapore hasn’t been one of their strongest races.

Since Sebastian Vettel's dominant win from pole position in 2013, Red Bull have triumphed under the Singapore floodlights just once – in 2022 with Sergio Perez.

The circuit has often played into the strengths of Ferrari over the years.

For Verstappen, a combination of Red Bull not having the fastest car – or simple misfortune – has meant a first Singapore victory has so far escaped him.

However, Verstappen is the in-form F1 driver at the moment.

He has taken back-to-back victories in Monza and Baku.

The Dutchman is now 69 points behind Oscar Piastri with seven rounds to go.

A first win in Singapore would confirm Verstappen as a serious title contender heading into the final stretch of the season.

It would also prove that Red Bull have got on top of their mid-season issues and that the RB21 is capable of performing at all types of circuits, not just low-downforce ones like Monza or Baku.

Verstappen’s Singapore GP results

Even though Max Verstappen is without a victory at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, it would be unfair to class it as a weak track for him.

In 2015, driving for Toro Rosso, Verstappen defied team orders to finish eighth in his rookie campaign.

He has produced a number of outstanding qualifying laps over the years.

Verstappen secured second on the grid behind Vettel in 2017, but his race ended on Lap 1 after a collision with Kimi Raikkonen and Vettel at the start.

His 2018 lap was even more impressive.

While Hamilton’s pole lap stole the headlines, Verstappen was only a couple of tenths shy of top spot in qualifying.

Verstappen’s lap was arguably better than Hamilton’s given his de-tuned Renault engine.

Speaking after qualifying in 2018, Verstappen said: “It was totally unexpected. After final practice I was shaking from anger but now I’m just shaking from happiness.

“In FP3 there were just so many problems – I was going into forced neutral, the car was just stopping on the track and while driving on my fast laps it was bogging down.

“Qualifying was the same story so we had to detune the engine and lost a bit of time there to try and make the drivability better, but it still didn’t work like it should do. So going into Q3, I felt that the car was working well and I didn’t really have anything to complain about.

“When I saw second place on the board, I was actually quite surprised given the problems I had. On my final run I tried to push a bit more, and I was two tenths up when I arrived at Turns 16 and 17 and then when I tried to short shift, the engine just cut out.”

2022 was arguably Verstappen’s biggest missed opportunity, given Perez won ahead of Charles Leclerc.

Verstappen was on course to take a likely pole but had to abandon his lap due to a lack of fuel.