Singapore Formula One Grand Prix: Max Verstappen wins chaotic sprint race

“F1 looks amateurish and incompetent after farcical scenes in Sepang” was the headline on Giles Richards’ Bahrain-in-Malaysia verdict, after the rain and the rules combined to leave the world’s fastest drivers calling the Kuala Lumpur AA for help. Surely, things could only get better for the FIA.

And then came sprint qualifying in Singapore, and human error:

After ⁠the first ​sprint qualifying session was red-flagged when Cadillac’s Sergio Perez crashed into a barrier, race control staff belatedly reactivated “overtake mode” for ⁠27 seconds before switching it off for the rest of the session.

Overtake mode gives drivers extra power and toggling it on helped ⁠drivers who were setting a lap time at the end of the session. Reuters

It didn’t affect the championship leaders but Carlos Sainz (speaking before it was clear it was human rather than software error) was furious:

“Half of the cars ‌did the lap with ‌half a second quicker engine than the others. There was another software issue with ‌the cars this time around and we were on the bad end of it,” Sainz said.

“For whatever reason, the FIA, like in Malaysia, didn’t decide to do sporting equity and were happy to do half of the cars in quali with higher power than the other half of the cars. So a bit ‌confused why the sport keeps doing different things depending on who is out in Q1 or who is out in lap one.” Reuters

Reports that the FIA has borrowed and adapted Homer Simpson’s “days without an accident” sign from the nuclear power station remain unconfirmed.

Not that things have been much better at Mercedes, at least with regard to George Russell, who fared even worse in Bahrain-in-Malaysia than the FIA’s IT helpdesk. His engine failure meant nul points in that race, relegation to the back of the main race grid here and another penalty to come, as the new engine he has taken here will not last to the end of the season. Still, he has bounced back with second on the grid for the sprint, behind Max Verstappen, followed by Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri: four different cars in the first four. Kimi Antonelli – of whom more anon – is down in seventh.

Join me from 9.30am BST for the buildup to the sprint – 10am BST start, with qualifying to follow at 2pm.