diff --git a/src/library/base/R/version.R b/src/library/base/R/version.R
index 5cb81212df..644a80964e 100644
--- a/src/library/base/R/version.R
+++ b/src/library/base/R/version.R
@@ -305,11 +305,11 @@ function(..., na.rm)
             y
     }
     else
+        # Subscripting with 1L ensures the result is NA with length 0 input.
         switch(.Generic,
-               max = x[which(v == max(v))[1L]],
-               min = x[which(v == min(v))[1L]],
-               range = x[c(which(v == min(v))[1L],
-                           which(v == max(v))[1L])])
+               max = x[which.max(v)[1L]],
+               min = x[which.min(v)[1L]],
+               range = x[c(which.min(v)[1L], which.max(v)[1L])])
 }
 
 as.character.numeric_version <-
diff --git a/tests/reg-tests-1e.R b/tests/reg-tests-1e.R
index 0cb4f85e8f..d8c2c5dc58 100644
--- a/tests/reg-tests-1e.R
+++ b/tests/reg-tests-1e.R
@@ -483,6 +483,11 @@ stopifnot(identical(format(x[,2]), c(NA_character_, "0")))
 is.na(x)[1] <- TRUE; stopifnot(identical(is.na(x), c(TRUE, FALSE)))
 ## gave two spurious warnings in R <= 4.2.2
 
+## NAs were not removed in R <= 4.5.2 (PR#19000)
+x[3] <- "3.1"
+stopifnot(identical(max(x, na.rm = TRUE), numeric_version("3.1")))
+stopifnot(identical(min(x, na.rm = TRUE), numeric_version("2.0")))
+stopifnot(identical(range(x, na.rm = TRUE), numeric_version(c("2.0", "3.1"))))
 
 mChk <- function(m) stopifnot(exprs = {
     identical(attributes(m), list(dim=2:3))