Verstappen wins Singapore sprint but demands Red Bull fix 'horrendous' starts before Sunday

Max Verstappen won the Singapore Sprint Race at the Marina Bay Street Circuit on Saturday, adding to his pole position from Friday’s qualifying session — both firsts for the four-time world champion at the street circuit. Despite the milestone, Verstappen was quick to dismiss the result’s significance, turning his attention instead to a worrying mechanical issue ahead of Sunday’s grand prix.

“I want to win tomorrow,” Verstappen said. “I don’t see this as a win in terms of actually winning a grand prix.”

Verstappen has long been a vocal critic of the sprint format, and his reaction to victory in Singapore was no different. “My emotion is the same,” he said. “It doesn’t matter to me if I have won on the track before or not.”

The more pressing concern for Verstappen and Red Bull is the team’s persistent problem off the start line. In Malaysia, both Mercedes cars surged past him at the launch, and George Russell repeated the feat in Saturday’s sprint in Singapore.

“The start was horrendous again, so that’s definitely something that we need to improve on,” Verstappen admitted. “If you have something like that tomorrow, that’s your race over, if nothing crazy happens.”

When asked to explain the issue, Verstappen was blunt: “As always, it just doesn’t go off the line. The car just doesn’t go, we don’t accelerate off the line.”

The problem is particularly acute in Singapore, where the narrow Marina Bay layout makes overtaking exceptionally difficult. Losing positions at the start on a circuit where passing opportunities are so rare can be effectively race-ending.

Verstappen acknowledged that the fault is not entirely with the car setup, pointing to sister team Racing Bulls as a benchmark. “We have a few limitations that we have to work on, and that is probably from our side as well,” he said. “We have to do a better job because Racing Bulls sometimes does better starts than us, so yeah, we just need to be better.”

Despite the starts concern, the sprint result offers Red Bull genuine encouragement. The RB22 has looked competitive throughout the Singapore weekend, suggesting the team has addressed some of the weaknesses that made the street circuit a difficult venue in recent seasons. Whether that pace translates into a grand prix victory on Sunday will depend, in no small part, on how cleanly Verstappen gets away from the grid.