Liam Lawson stuns Max Verstappen as Red Bull derailed in 'impossible' F1 challenge

Having been thrown into the deep end on his debut in the chaotic Dutch Grand Prix, Liam Lawson followed up with a decent, if under-the-radar 11th at Monza. 

The Daniel Ricciardo stand-in had done what was expected of him, but on his first visit to the Singapore GP, Lawson announced himself - and bloodied the nose of Max Verstappen in the process.

The Singapore GP was round 15 of 22 in the season, which up until this point, had been Verstappen's personal plaything. He had won 12 of the previous 14 races, and had not been defeated in a grand prix or Sprint in five months - since Sergio Perez won the Azerbaijan GP. 

For Lawson, usually, his AlphaTauri machine was not expected to be a challenger to Verstappen's all-conquering machine - but things did not go according to plan. 

Lawson stuns Verstappen

As practice and the early stages of qualifying developed, it became clear that Red Bull's RB19 was badly out of sorts at Marina Bay, its balance and operating window just not getting on with the track. 

Whilst Perez was comfortably out in Q2 in 13th place, Verstappen found himself on the bubble for a Q3 place, with Lawson on a flying lap.

The New Zealander's 1:32.166 was 0.007s faster than Verstappen's best time, and consigned the Dutchman to 11th - his lowest place of the year on pure pace in qualifying, his 15th in Saudi Arabia being due to a car failure.

Lawson found himself as the lead Red Bull-family driver on the grid, eventually going onto take 10th in Q3, with a time actually slower than the one which had knocked Verstappen out. 

Despite starting 11th, Verstappen was still not ruled out of contention for the win, but he could only climb up to fifth - the only race of the year he did not finish on the podium - or out of the final 18 he did not win.

Perez also passed Lawson, but the AlphaTauri driver banked ninth place to score his first F1 points and make a statement. 

As for Red Bull, it lost its chance to become the first team to win every grand prix in a single season, matching McLaren's 1988 record of falling one short with 21 out of 22 wins after Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost took 15 from 16.