Peerless Max Verstappen beats Charles Leclerc for first Singapore GP win

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen ended his wait to claim his first victory at Formula 1’s Singapore Grand Prix with a dominant drive. 

Four-time world champion Verstappen followed up his sprint race win on Saturday to make it back-to-back grand prix victories in commanding fashion, beating Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc by seven seconds. 

Verstappen’s biggest threat came at the start but he aggressively defended the inside to keep Leclerc behind, before the Dutchman took control and began to pull clear of his rivals. 

The win never looked under threat for Verstappen, with his major problem coming from radio issues that prevented Red Bull’s pit wall from being able to properly communicate with their driver. 

Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase had to resort to using coded messages to manage the second half of the race. 

Despite the communication problems, Verstappen was peerless as he secured his 73rd victory in F1. 

Behind Leclerc, Andrea Kimi Antonelli completed the podium in third place to further extend his championship lead over Mercedes team-mate George Russell, who recovered from 19th on the grid to take ninth. 

The result means Antonelli can win the title at the United States Grand Prix next time out in Austin. 

Lando Norris finished fourth in the lead McLaren, ahead of team-mate Oscar Piastri, who snatched fifth place off Lewis Hamilton on the last lap. 

It proved to be a frustrating race for seven-time world champion Hamilton, whose puzzling strategy to not pit under a virtual safety car and hold it out on old soft tyres backfired and saw him drop from third to sixth. 

Liam Lawson scored more solid points for Racing Bulls in seventh, ahead of Audi's Nico Hülkenberg and Russell, who fought back to P9. 

Red Bull's Isack Hadjar scored the final point on offer in 10th, having started in the pit lane after suffering a gearbox failure in qualifying.