POWER RANKINGS: One driver shines under the lights as the judges scores come in from Singapore

The Singapore Grand Prix served up an epic weekend of racing that ended with Carlos Sainz lifting the first place trophy. The Ferrari driver makes it into this week’s top-10 but who else joins the Spaniard? Scroll down below to see the judges scores…

How it works

Our five-judge panel assess each driver after every Grand Prix and score them out of 10 according to their performance across the weekend – taking machinery out of the equation
Our experts’ scores are then averaged out to produce a race score – with those scores then tallied up across the season on our overall Power Rankings Leaderboard (at the bottom of the page)

A first-class performance, from the minute the lights turned green on Friday to the chequered flag on Sunday, sees Sainz at the top of this week’s standings. The Spaniard dominated to take a stunning win, and it might not have been possible without an outstanding performance in qualifying that saw him start on pole.

But even after holding the lead all race, the win looked to be slipping away when both Mercedes cars strapped on some fresh mediums and hunted down the leaders. Sainz showed he has the race intelligence to match his speed as a cunning DRS plan kept him and Norris in first and second, allowing him to take the first non-Red Bull win of the year.

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It is a third second-place finish this season for Norris, who will be thankful for the DRS given to him in the closing stages by his close friend, Sainz, that kept him ahead of both Mercedes. But even without the DRS aid, Norris' showing was strong enough to earn a place on the podium.

In the upgraded MCL60, Norris found himself always competing at the sharp end of the field, and a strong pit stop saw him leap ahead of Charles Leclerc to be in the podium places. And when he was required to defend from George Russell, he did that, earning him and McLaren a well-earned second place.

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The AlphaTauri super sub has been performing at a high level since coming into the car in Zandvoort and saw his fine work rewarded this weekend with his first foray into Q3 and his maiden points finish having taken ninth place.

He was hard on himself after the race, as after lining up 10th he dropped down to 12th at the start. But he should be incredibly proud of his recovery, and his ability to have a clean weekend at a track notoriously hard on rookies. A job well done.

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Another driver who was hard on himself was Hamilton as he admitted that he needed to improve his qualifying moving forward, after starting the race in fifth while his team mate, Russell, was up in second.

On the plus side, his pace in the race was phenomenal, especially in the final stint where he was at times nearly a second faster than anybody else on track. Third place was his reward after Russell’s crash, but it was the sort of drive that on some other days would have been worthy of victory.

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Lost in all the chaos of Sunday night’s action was that Piastri made up 10 places during the race to take an impressive seventh place. As recovery drives go it was as strong as they come after he was unluckily knocked out of Q1 – he was caught up behind Lance Stroll’s crash and could not set a lap time.

But he put that all to bed to deliver once again for McLaren, with a strong start and steady progress throughout the 62 laps proving key to the Australian's success, as he once again impressed behind the wheel of the MCL60.

The results have not always been what he would have hoped for but Gasly has been performing at an extremely high level for a large part of the season, and his drive in Singapore was once again a display of his immense ability.

He qualified 12th, but revealed after that Alpine still had pace in hand. He proved that to be true, as he navigated his way through the field on Sunday, making some impressive overtakes, and staying out of trouble to get sixth place. A job well done.

Things have not always gone Magnussen's way this year as he has appeared to lack pace to his team mate, Nico Hulkenberg, in qualifying. But he showed how good he is in Singapore, as he out-qualified the German for just the fourth time this year.

He was in fine form again on Sunday, despite losing places at the start and running wide twice in one lap to drop from 10th to 16th. The Dane was able to recover to make it back into the top-10, scoring Haas’ first point in a Grand Prix since Miami in May.

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Plenty was made of Russell’s last lap crash but there may have not been anyone unluckier on Sunday than Ocon. While Gasly was knocked out in Q2, Ocon made it into Q3 for the first time since Montreal as he qualified eighth.

A strong start then saw him running in seventh before he showed what a great wheel-to-wheel driver he is with a series of brilliant overtakes on Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez. Unfortunately, with the French driver looking set to finish in a strong sixth, an unfortunate gearbox issue ended his race.

Russell showed a good turn of pace for much of the weekend as he narrowly missed out on pole position to Sainz by just 0.072s. Unfortunately, he dropped to third after losing out to Leclerc in the opening exchanges of the race, before moving back up to second after the Safety Car restart.

The bold decision by Mercedes to strap on a set of mediums to chase down victory looked to be paying off until the Briton could not get past Norris for second. Unfortunately, he crashed into the barrier on the final lap, and having been the quickest driver for large parts of the race, it was an unfortunate way to end.

Another driver that will feel hard done by is Albon. The Williams driver endured a difficult weekend that saw him contend with engine problems on Friday and he was knocked out in Q2 on Saturday.

In the race he had looked set to recover and take some vital points for Williams but, unfortunately, he was hit by Perez in the closing stages while he was chasing Lawson for eighth place.

This knocked Albon back out of the top-10, ending his hopes of scoring points. But it was still a great individual performance from him.

It was another good performance from Leclerc, who willl have been frustrated that he didn't make it onto the podium. His slow stop, and mistake looking to avoid hitting the back of Norris at the restart, dropped him down the order.

But fourth place is nothing to look down on especially as he had been running in a solid second before that. Additionally, his performance played a role in helping Sainz take victory and pushing Ferrari closer to Mercedes in the battle for second in the championship.

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Missing out

Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda are the two drivers to miss out on a place in this week's top-10. Verstappen finished outside of the podium for the first time all season, as he recovered from his Q2 exit to finish fifth.

Tsunoda, on the other hand, qualified 15th but his hopes of making progress up the order were ended when he collided with Perez on the opening lap of the race.

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POWER RANKINGS: One driver shines under the lights as the judges scores come in from Singapore

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Missing out

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