Max Verstappen *Finally* Wins In Singapore (2026 Singapore Grand Prix Reaction)

Now, it has been 10 attempts of Max Verstappen attempting to win the Singapore Grand Prix, and I think the most notable one has to be that race in 2023 where Max was on that a million race win streak.

It was all Red Bull, all Max, all the time, and then they got to Singapore and it stopped for that one race, and then Max and Red Bull kept winning.

But Singapore was the race that Max did not win.

It was, of course, the Carlos Sainz win that we lo-- don't get us wrong, we loved it, but it was that one circuit where the question really came into, "Is Max ever going to win in Singapore?" And the answer, three years later, is yes.

It just, it took a while, and apparently it took, A, a new regulation of cars that are objectively worse than previous regulations, and B, took Red Bull building their own engine through the Red Bull Ford program.

So apparently that's what they needed.

We had no idea.

Also, I wanna point out, and we're gonna talk a little bit more about the sprint later, but I did appreciate as a person who is very skeptical about the long-term viability of sprint racing in Formula 1, that when he was asked following his win in the sprint race if he was happy to have finally won in Singapore, and Max was basically like, "This doesn't count.

It's the Grand Prix that counts." Which is, between that and the way that Racing Bulls was handling Arvid Lindblad's experience in Singapore because he is a r- it's easy to forget that Arvid Lindblad's a rookie, but Arvid Lindblad was basically treating the qualifying sessions and the practice session as practice sessions because of how limited his experience on track is in Singapore.

And for something that is touted as such a big deal, big innovation in Formula 1, to have sprints be looked down upon by people who have won most of them, AKA Max, and to have them being treated as training sessions to make up for the fact that we've lost the actual practice sessions really goes to show that no matter what Stefano Domenicali says, these sprint races really don't add much to the overall scope of Formula 1 as a sport, other than perhaps 12% higher viewership of sprint races and of the sprint qualifying sessions because it's not just a practice session.

People are more willing to turn in.

But are they turning in for a better product? I say no.

But what do I know? Stefano doesn't listen to me, except for the fact that Monaco is a sprint next year, which really just is the fact that we're gonna have two qualifying sessions, which means two parades, but also two exciting qualifying sessions instead of one.

It's not gonna be great.

But anyway, I have more thoughts on that in my 2027 schedule breakdown, which is linked above and down in the show notes.

Let's get back to talking about Max Verstappen winning in Singapore.

He did it.

Still can't believe-- I, I was so nervous the entirety of that race that Max was gonna come out of the Singapore race weekend just with the win in the sprint race, and something was going to happen in the Grand Prix, and it was gonna be another year of, "Oh, Max can't win in Singapore," but also Max did win the sprint race in Singapore, so he kinda did, and the discourse would never be ending.

So the fact that he was able to pull out both victories was really great, even though he had some actually pretty serious radio issues that for, you know, radio communication is obviously newer, especially to the extent that we have now in 2026 between a driver and his team.

There are different rules in previous years.

Uh, specifically, the 2016 comes to mind because in 2016, the team radio rules were actually very limited in what you could and could not talk to a driver about, which I talk about in my 2016 episode, linked above, down in the show notes.

So it's incredibly inconvenient as a team to not get the feedback that you need from your driver, and fortunately it was couldn't hear the driver, but the driver could hear the engineer, GP, Jean-Pierre Lambiase.

So it, it could have been much, much worse for Max's 250th Grand Prix start.

The other big thing is the storyline has always been like, this is the one active circuit on the calendar that Max has never won, which technically isn't true anymore because Madrid exists, except Madrid doesn't matter because Madrid can't provide us good racing.

So until Madrid sucks less as a circuit and as a race, Max has won all the races that matter on all the circuits that matter.