Lando Norris survived a brush against the wall to take victory at the Singapore Grand Prix, beating Max Verstappen by nearly 21 seconds to reduce the drivers’ championship to 52 points.
The McLaren driver glanced the wall twice during a crushing victory, first knocking his front wing at Turn 14 after a lock-up ahead of his single pitstop, but escaped without needing to change it during the switch to hard tyres.
During his hard-tyre stint, Norris later knocked the wall with his rear right at Turn 10, at the same point that he and George Russell knocked it in the closing laps of last year’s Marina Bay race.
Neither incident appeared to cause much of an issue, although the former had cut a 25-second lead over Verstappen to 21 seconds in the overlap between stops.
Norris had been able to keep the lead into the first corner over Verstappen, and quickly built a one-second lead to ensure the Red Bull driver could not mount an attack with DRS in the opening laps.
Instructed to build a lead of five seconds “in the mid-teens” on the lap count, Norris completed that request early to build up that margin by lap 11, and then started to put more than a second per lap over his championship rival.
After his minor contact with the wall, Norris settled in during the latter phases and his lead tickled the 30-second mark before being told to “bring the car home”.
After turning the pace down and dealing with traffic, Norris crossed the line to clinch his third win of the year – although his fastest lap effort was denied at the end by Daniel Ricciardo’s lap on soft tyres.
Verstappen crossed the line 20.9 seconds behind, while Oscar Piastri ensured both McLarens made it onto the podium with third.
Piastri had gone long on his medium tyres having been stuck behind the Mercedes duo in the early stages, which was enough of a tyre advantage to dispatch Lewis Hamilton and Russell successively.
Although the aim was to catch Verstappen at the end, the Red Bull driver’s pace was too great to overcome for a McLaren 1-2.
Russell finished fourth position after batting away a rapidly catching Charles Leclerc at the end, having become the lead Mercedes with an overcut over the soft-starting Hamilton.
Leclerc had also gone long on his tyres and, although was undercut by the out-of-position Carlos Sainz following the pitstops, the two were asked to swap places and this allowed the Ferrari driver to chase after the Mercedes duo.
Hamilton was managing his hard tyres around the race for 45 laps, nonetheless four short of the very early stopping Sainz as the Ferrari driver lost positions at the start.
Fernando Alonso claimed eighth position, the first of the drivers to be a lap down, while Nico Hulkenberg spent his entire hard-tyre stint keeping Sergio Perez at bay to ensure Haas claimed a valuable two points. Franco Colapinto was just 1.7 seconds behind Perez at the flag, having earlier run ahead of Checo.
Kevin Magnussen and Alex Albon were the sole retirees, the Haas driver suffering lasting effects from his earlier puncture following a brush with the wall, while Albon was out early with an overheating power unit in the Williams.
So not the most thrilling Singapore Grand Prix and yet in terms of the championship Lando Norris winning has reduced the points gap to title contender Max Verstappen to 52. With a triple header coming up in America, Mexico and Brazil – plus two spirits in COTA and Interlagos – this winning momentum is looking good for McLaren.
Singapore Grand Prix, race results:
1 Lando Norris McLaren 1:40:52.571
2 Max Verstappen Red Bull +20.945s
3 Oscar Piastri McLaren +41.823s
4 George Russell Mercedes +61.040s
5 Charles Leclerc Ferrari +62.430s
6 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +85.248s
7 Carlos Sainz Ferrari +96.039s
8 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin +1 lap
9 Nico Hulkenberg Haas +1 lap
10 Sergio Perez Red Bull +1 lap
11 Franco Colapinto Williams +1 lap
12 Yuki Tsunoda RB +1 lap
13 Esteban Ocon Alpine +1 lap
14 Lance Stroll Aston Martin +1 lap
15 Zhou Guanyu Sauber +1 lap
16 Valtteri Bottas Sauber +1 lap
17 Pierre Gasly Alpine +1 lap
18 Daniel Ricciardo RB +1 lap
Kevin Magnussen Haas DNF
Alexander Albon Williams DNF
Lando Norris converted pole position into victory with a charging drive during Sunday night’s Singapore Grand Prix, finishing 20 seconds clear of Max Verstappen and reducing the championship leader’s points advantage once more.
Norris banished the memories of previous poor starts from the front of the grid to slot ahead of Verstappen at Turn 1 and control the opening laps, before romping clear and spending most of the encounter in a league of his own.
With no answer to Norris’s raw pace, Verstappen had to settle for a distant second position, while Oscar Piastri’s rise from fifth to third – and a lowly points finish for Sergio Perez – means McLaren move further ahead of Red Bull in the constructors’ standings.
Piastri stayed out longer than anyone else in the first stint and charged his way past Mercedes pair Lewis Hamilton and George Russell with fresher tyres, something Charles Leclerc – as another late stopper – tried to repeat across the closing laps.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/norris-dominates-singapore-gp-to-cut-verstappens-title-lead-again.MZ20MuNu3E9hLQmNEg2Tc
Lando Norris has suggested he wasn’t “necessarily overpushing” after escaping from twice touching with the wall without damage during a dominant Singapore Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver put in a statement drive to defeat Formula 1 championship rival Max Verstappen by over 20 seconds at the Marina Bay Circuit, including leading at the end of the first lap from pole for the first time in his career.
But during the race, he tweaked his front wing after locking up and heading straight on at Turn 14, nudging the barrier on exit, before almost replicating the incident that forced George Russell out of last year’s event on entry to Turn 10 later in the race.
Norris also ran wide when lapping Williams driver Franco Colapinto in the closing stages, though had plenty of margin for error at the Turn 16/17 chicane.
“It was an amazing race – a few too many close calls,” said Norris. “I had a couple of little moments in the middle, but it was well-controlled, I think.
“The car was mega, so I could push. We were flying the whole race and at the end I could just chill. So it was nice. It’s still tough. I’m a bit out of breath, but a very fun one.”
Asked whether he needed to be pushing so hard that mistakes were made given his dominance over the field, Norris replied: “It’s not that you’re necessarily overpushing, sometimes it can be that you’re just chilling too much.
“Maybe it was a bit of both. I don’t know what it is, it’s tricky. It was still tough out there, easy to lock the tyres like I did. So, I still pushed, I didn’t want to have a one-second lead, I wanted to have the biggest lead possible.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/norris-overpushing-touching-walls-singapore-gp/10657051/
Daniel Ricciardo has conceded “maybe the fairytale ending didn’t happen” in his run to 18th at the Singapore Grand Prix if it was his last ever Formula 1 race.
RB reserve Liam Lawson has been heavily linked to his drive for the remainder of the season, with Ricciardo unable to show significant improvement across his return to F1 after sitting out for half of 2023.
Although Ricciardo remained cagey on his future over the weekend, he was evidently deflated after a difficult race in which he was the last of the remaining cars on track – albeit with the fastest lap in his pocket after making a late third stop for soft tyres.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1, Ricciardo said that he was “proud” of his 13 years racing in F1 and added that although he paid little attention to F1’s ‘driver of the day’ award, he admitted it meant “a little something” to receive it in what could have been his final grand prix.
“I have to acknowledge why I came back after the McLaren stint, and I always said I didn’t want to come back just to be on the grid,” said Ricciardo.
“I wanted to try and fight back at the front and get back with Red Bull. Obviously, it didn’t come to fruition, so then I also have to ask myself the question ‘what else can I achieve? What else is there to really go for?
“I put my best foot forward. Let’s say maybe the fairytale ending didn’t happen, but I also have to look back on what’s been 13 or so years and I’m proud.
“Typically the driver of the day thing is maybe not something us drivers look too much into, but today I can say it’s something I’m appreciative of. So that one means a little something.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ricciardo-fairytale-ending-didnt-happen-with-f1-future-in-doubt/10657090/
Max Verstappen made clear that he and Red Bull are “not happy” about finishing second to McLaren’s Lando Norris at the Singapore Grand Prix, but described it as a “good achievement” in the circumstances.
Verstappen and team mate Sergio Perez started the weekend on the back foot as they struggled to tame the RB20 around the Marina Bay Street Circuit, leaving both of them braced for a challenging weekend.
While that played out for Perez, who got eliminated in Q2 and went on to finish the race 10th, Verstappen managed to turn the situation around and make it into the pole position shootout – where he placed second to championship rival Norris.
On race day, it soon became clear that Norris and McLaren had the upper hand, with the Briton winning by some 20 seconds and reducing Verstappen’s title advantage from 59 points to 52 ahead of the final six rounds.
Asked to reflect on his lonely night at the wheel, and the pace displayed by Norris, the reigning world champion said: “I think that’s pretty much my race, by myself. I tried to do the best I could, tried to manage my own pace to the end.
“I think the first stint was a bit difficult for us, quite a bit of tyre degradation. The second stint was a bit better, I was a bit more comfortable as well.
“I think on a weekend where we knew that we were going to struggle, to be P2 is a good achievement. Of course, we are not happy with second. Now we just have to try and improve more and more, and that’s what we’ll try to do.”
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/verstappen-calls-p2-in-singapore-good-achievement-but-insists-red-bull-have.8hWF4xX3GhGg33mCxPBGe
Charles Leclerc reflected on his Singapore Grand Prix with “mixed feelings” after climbing from P9 on the grid to a final result of P5, the Monegasque having stated that he paid the price for what he deemed as his own mistake during Saturday’s qualifying.
It was a weekend of ups and downs for Ferrari, with Leclerc and McLaren’s Lando Norris seemingly in a league of their own at the top of the timesheets during Friday’s practice sessions.
However, that pace seemed to have slipped come Saturday, while Leclerc’s qualifying ended in disaster when his sole flying lap was deleted for exceeding track limits, leading to the seven-time race winner voicing his frustration post-session about the tyre temperatures.
That saw him down in ninth on the grid, leaving him with extra work to do during Sunday’s 62-lap race. After finding himself stuck behind the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso and Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg for many laps, Leclerc was able to make up ground once in free air and had the pace to eventually pass Lewis Hamilton for fifth place.
Despite trying to close in on Hamilton’s Mercedes team mate George Russell, Leclerc had to settle for P5 and admitted later on that he felt a range of emotions when looking back on his weekend at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.
“It’s mixed feelings,” the 26-year-old explained. “Today I think we did a really, really good job and I think there wasn’t anything on the table to do better. We had a frustrating first part of the race where we couldn’t do anything but just wait, and then once Nico and Fernando pitted I could push.
“We had good pace, we stopped and [had] a really strong second stint that brought us back to P5, so on that I was really happy. However, a bit of a disappointing weekend.
“Yesterday I arrived here [to the media pen] very angry because of the tyres – looking back at it, yes the tyres were not exactly in the right window, but this happens very often in qualifying and I think the main issue was me locking up into Turn 1 and going wide and having track limits and a bad lap and everything.
“With hindsight, I think I was probably the one to blame yesterday, and it happens – there will be qualifying that we do well and qualifyings where you do a mistake, especially when you have only one lap and then you pay the price.
“The only problem is that to not do a lap in Q3 here in Singapore is probably the track where you pay the price the most. But again, if I look [at] only today, I feel like we’ve done a really, really good job. If I look at the weekend as a whole, I paid the price for the mistake of yesterday.”
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/leclerc-left-with-mixed-feelings-after-fightback-to-p5-in-singapore-as-he.10ZR07GCa8NNotxfSQ1ri6