Verstappen unhappy with 'horrendous' start despite Singapore GP Sprint win
Photo: Red Bull Contentpool
Henry Eccles is a freelance Formula 1 journalist for GPblog, covering breaking news, live race blogs, and features across the F1 calendar. Since joining in 2026, he has produced high-volume reporting on the sport’s biggest stories, alongside feature pieces including analysis and historical content.
Max Verstappen is far from pleased despite securing Sprint victory at the Singapore GP Sprint, citing his poor start up against George Russell.
After a 35-minute delay due to heavy rain, Verstappen started on Pole Position just ahead of the Briton, but quickly lost his lead after a slow second phase to his Sprint start.
The Dutchman, however, had regained his place by the end of the lap, after Russell spun on the exit of Turn 19 and suffered a DNF. The four-time world champion took a comfortable victory ahead of Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton, finishing 2.5s ahead of his old rival in mixed conditions in Singapore.
Speaking post-race, Verstappen lamented his slow start against Russell: “The start was horrendous again, so that’s definitely something that we need to improve on because if you have something like that tomorrow, that’s your race over, if nothing crazy happens. Not ideal, but we got a bit lucky with what happened with George out of the last corner.
“And after that, you just want to keep it calm and under control, because you know that you can’t pass around here, especially around here in these conditions with the intermediate. I’m happy to win here in the Sprint, but I also know that I want to win tomorrow, not today."
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Verstappen: 'Like always, it doesn't go off the line'
Photo: Race Pictures
Addressing media, including GPblog, in the post-Sprint press conference, Verstappen again shared his frustrations, sharply explaining what went wrong at the start. "Like always, it just doesn't go off the line. Yeah, it just doesn't… we don't accelerate off the line," he said.
The Dutchman was asked how confident he is for Qualifying later on Saturday, but could not shake his concern over Red Bull's tricky starts so far this season. The 29-year-old suffered a similarly slow start last weekend in Sepang, but recovered strongly to take Red Bull's first win of 2026.
"Well, I'm excited for qualifying for sure," Verstappen added. "I want to, of course, try and fight for Pole again, even though I do think that it will be a tight battle with a lot of cars, which I think is great, of course, and, yeah, I hope we can be in that fight.
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"But still we need to, of course, still do a start afterwards and up until now, we always have terrible starts. So, yeah, we need to really understand what we're doing wrong there."
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