Marina Bay Gets a First: Singapore to Stage Debut F1 Sprint Weekend
Singapore's iconic night race will host a Sprint for the first time in its history this weekend (9-11 October), with the compressed schedule and a rare Saturday dash raising the stakes in the title run-in.
Formula 1 heads to the Marina Bay Street Circuit this weekend for the 17th round of the 2026 season, and the Singapore night race will look different from anything it has staged before. For the first time in the event's long history under the lights, teams will contest a Sprint weekend, cramming qualifying and a 100-kilometre dash into a punishing schedule on one of the toughest circuits of the year. The format change squeezes the usual three practice sessions down to a single 60-minute run on Friday morning, meaning teams have barely any time to dial in their cars for a 4.9-kilometre street circuit where track position is everything. Sprint qualifying follows on Friday afternoon, with the Sprint itself on Saturday ahead of the main Grand Prix qualifying — and the 62-lap night race gets underway at 20:00 local time on Sunday. It is also the final Sprint of the 2026 season, putting extra value on the eight points available for victory. Championship leader Kimi Antonelli arrives holding an 84-point cushion over Mercedes team-mate George Russell, while Max Verstappen is buoyed by his first win of the campaign at Sepang. With little room for error around Marina Bay's walls, this weekend's experiment could shuffle the order before the championship's decisive stretch.