Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Max Verstappen won the sprint race and then followed up by securing pole position at the F1 Singapore Grand Prix, but Australia’s Oscar Piastri was forced to settle for seventh spot after an earlier collision in the sprint.
Verstappen qualified first on the grid by 0.054 of a second ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, with British veteran Lewis Hamilton third and F1 Championship leader Kimi Antonelli fourth.
Besides Verstappen, the day’s other big winner was Antonelli, who widened his lead over George Russell when his Mercedes teammate crashed out from the lead in the sprint.
Piastri’s McLaren teammate Lando Norris was fifth but they will be next to each other on row three in Sunday’s Grand Prix because of a penalty for Briton Russell.
The two collided in the last lap of the sprint race fighting for fourth place, with Norris limping home in eighth and Piastri not finishing.
Russell beat Verstappen off the line at the start in wet conditions but lost control when he put a wheel on a painted line at the end of the first lap, spinning across the track and into the barrier.
The British driver tapped his hands against the car in frustration as he climbed out.
“I’m fine. Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he told Mercedes over the radio.
Verstappen eased to the win after that, backing up his victory in Malaysia last week, with Ferrari duo Hamilton and Leclerc second and third.
Antonelli was fourth, extending his lead over Russell from 84 points to 89, after he picked up two positions on the last lap when Norris and Piastri collided ahead of him.
Norris tried an ambitious overtake down the inside of his teammate but badly misjudged it and sent the Melburnian spinning into the barrier. McLaren chief executive Zak Brown shook his head in dismay on the pit wall.
Russell has a grid penalty for Sunday’s Grand Prix, meaning the 20-year-old Antonelli could take another big step toward becoming F1’s youngest-ever champion.
Russell wasn’t the only driver to be caught out in the wet conditions. He was one of eight non-finishers after a spate of collisions and technical problems, with Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar stopped by car trouble.
Verstappen said Red Bull will need to work on its “horrendous” starts after he lost the sprint lead off the line, just as he did in Malaysia last week.
“We don’t accelerate off the line,” he said. “Up until now we always have terrible starts so we need to understand what’s going on there.”
