It was a very mixed F1 Sprint Race in the wet at the 2026 Singapore GP for Mercedes duo George Russell and Kimi Antonelli.
From P2 on the grid, the British driver got a lovely launch off the line and easily cleared Max Verstappen into Turn 1.
At the end of the opening tour, George Russell carried a lot of speed through the final corner in very damp conditions, got on the kerb and white lines and spun. Car #63 went across the track and found the wall. As his broken machine came back towards the racing line, he was thankfully fortunate not to get collected by a good chunk of the field.
Mercedes’ George Russell on costly crash in 2026 F1 Singapore GP Sprint Race
The 28-year-old took full responsibility for the incident when speaking to F1 TV.
“Yeah, I just misjudged it to be honest.
“I came around the corner, I came on the throttle, I got more power than I was expecting from the battery. I went a little bit wide and then I touched a white line. And you know, number one rule in the rain is don’t touch the white lines.
“And yeah it’s a very, very silly mistake. Overly confident. Yeah, just think it’s my first crash of the year. It’s annoying to happen from that position.”
Antonelli hopeful for better pace across the Grand Prix segment
Using the upgraded W17 from Malaysia, championship leader Kimi Antonelli was 7th in Sprint Qualifying, almost 0.6s down on his teammate who is using the Baku package.
In the Sprint, Kimi Antonelli kept the McLarens in sight, joining them behind Charles Leclerc in the closing laps. On the final tour, Lando Norris hit Oscar Piastri as he tried a pass into Turn 5, giving the Italian a gift for P4. He just fell short of passing Leclerc, too.
While the car felt a small bit better compared to SQ, the Sprint Race was still difficult according to Kimi Antonelli.
As the cars come out of Parc Fermé before Grand Prix qualifying, the Italian is hopeful that adjustments can bring his Mercedes car to life.
“Yeah, I mean, we tried some things and it did feel a little bit better.
“Now we will make some changes going into qualifying and hopefully they will help us a little bit because the window seems very, very small where this package operates.
“But yeah, we saw some good things last night and hopefully we can improve some things and extract the potential out of the package because I truly believe that, yeah, there is potential in this package.
“We just need to find the right balance and hopefully we can improve our pace.”
