Norris dominates Singapore GP to cut Verstappen’s title lead again

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 – a couple of brushes with the walls aside.

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.

Leclerc overtook Hamilton with relative ease but could not quite do the same to Russell before the chequered flag dropped, leaving the Ferrari man in a Silver Arrows sandwich – team mate Carlos Sainz recovering from his qualifying crash to take seventh.

Fernando Alonso added some more points to Aston Martin’s tally in eighth, with Nico Hulkenberg giving Haas something to celebrate in ninth, as the aforementioned Perez – having been knocked out in the second qualifying phase – completed the top 10 places.

Franco Colapinto added to his impressive drives in Italy and Azerbaijan en route to P11, just a couple of seconds away from Perez and a points reward, followed by the lead RB and Alpine cars of Yuki Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon, and the second Aston Martin machine of Lance Stroll.

Kick Sauber drivers Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas crossed the line in 15th and 16th respectively, taking advantage of a difficult race for Pierre Gasly in the other Alpine and a three-stop affair for RB’s Daniel Ricciardo, who set the fastest lap after a late move to soft tyres.

Alex Albon lost a hatful of positions at the start when he felt he was forced wide by Williams team mate Colapinto and later retired due to an overheating car, with the Haas of Kevin Magnussen joining him on the DNF list at the end of the race after picking up a puncture.

Norris punched the air in delight as the podium finishers pulled up in parc ferme, having cut Verstappen’s title lead from 59 points to 52. McLaren, meanwhile, depart Singapore with an increased 41-point advantage over Red Bull in the constructors’.

AS IT HAPPENED

After Norris beat Verstappen to pole position in a thriller of a qualifying session, all eyes turned to race day and 62 punishing laps around the Marina Bay Street Circuit, which ominously held a 100% Safety Car record since the venue joined the calendar back in 2008.

A few drivers looking to take advantage of any more drama were Piastri, who could not match the one-lap pace of team mate Norris and had to settle for P5 on the grid, and fifth-row Ferrari pair Sainz and Leclerc, following their respective Q3 crash and deleted lap time woes.

It got tense before the race had even started down at Aston Martin, with Stroll reporting “a lot of vibration when I brake” as the pit lane opened and drivers completed their laps to the grid, prompting the Canadian’s mechanics to swarm the car and carry out hurried repairs.

When the tyre blankets came off all 20 cars, it was revealed that the majority of the field had chosen the medium compound for the start of an anticipated one-stop encounter, while Hamilton and Ricciardo opted for softs and Magnussen, Stroll, Bottas and Zhou went for hards.

A few minutes later, the five red lights switched on and then went out to get the race under way – Norris doing enough to keep his pole position advantage into the first corner over Verstappen, who had to fend off Hamilton in a brief wheel-to-wheel exchange.

Behind, Piastri was heavily compromised when attacking Russell into Turn 1, allowing Hulkenberg to squeeze through for fifth, only for the McLaren man to fight back along Raffles Boulevard and reclaim the position under braking for Turn 7.

Alonso was seventh, with Leclerc, Colapinto and Perez all gaining ground to hold the final top 10 spots, as Tsunoda and Sainz fell to P11 and P12, and Albon dropped all the way down to 15th after claiming he was “divebombed” by his rookie team mate at Turn 1 and forced wide.

“He needs to increase the pace a bit,” Russell said of team mate Hamilton a couple of laps in, as Norris and Verstappen scampered clear at the front. Crucially, the race leader was out of the championship leader’s DRS range and not at risk through the four zones.

Asked by the McLaren pit wall for an update on his pace as the lap chart approached double figures, Norris calmy stated that he was running at a “six”. His engineer then asked if the gap to Verstappen could be increased to five seconds and, as if by magic, he immediately went a second quicker.

While Norris made his move and soon hit the five-second mark, Ricciardo was the first driver to pit on Lap 11, swapping his softs for mediums, with Albon doing the same one tour later – moving over from mediums to hards – after that compromised start.

Sainz became the next driver to change tyres on Lap 14, rejoining in 18th and only just ahead of early-stopper Albon. “The undercut power looks strong, maybe two seconds,” was the message to Norris at this point, bringing a simple “confirm” in response.

Elsewhere, Perez took to the radio to describe Colapinto’s efforts as “very good”, with the Argentinian proving “difficult to pass”. But disaster struck inside the other Williams of Albon moments later when it began to overheat and had to be retired.

Incredibly, by Lap 18, Norris had stretched his lead out to a whopping 13 seconds, giving him plenty of breathing space for the approaching round of stops. Mercedes, meanwhile, decided it was the right time for Hamilton to ditch his softs and take on a set of hards.

“We just want to go as long as possible,” Norris got told at one-third distance. Verstappen was now 16 seconds back, with Russell 12 seconds further adrift in third, Piastri on his tail in fourth, and Hulkenberg, Alonso and Leclerc locked in their own battle from P5 to P7.

Colapinto, Perez and Tsunoda were doing all they could to keep that squabbling group in sight, followed by a frustrated Hamilton, who lamented that his sole stop came “too early” and predicted problems taking that set of hard tyres to the end of the Grand Prix.

Having been stuck behind Alonso for plenty of laps, Leclerc finally found a way past on Lap 26 before the Aston Martin dived into the pits for fresh, hard rubber. A few seconds behind, Hamilton’s race took another turn for the worse. “Something is wrong with the car, mate,” he told his engineer after a failed pass on Tsunoda.

Russell pitted from third a couple of laps later, prompting a radio message of encouragement to Piastri, who had been released into some welcome clean air, while Verstappen questioned the state of his rear tyres as he fell some 25 seconds behind Norris.

As more midfield runners pitted, and Leclerc made further progress by clearing Hulkenberg’s Haas, Norris delivered a concerned radio message of his own with the suggestion of front wing damage. Replays then showed him locking up at Turn 14 and glancing the wall.

Amid that drama, Verstappen pitted from second to swap his medium tyres for hards, rejoining just behind the yet-to-stop Leclerc. He was initially furious over the radio, fearing that the Monegasque had undercut him, but soon managed to move ahead and continue on his way.

Norris responded to Verstappen’s stop one lap later, with McLaren opting against a front wing change despite that heart-in-mouth incident. “We see a small issue with the front wing – nothing serious,” his engineer confirmed as he cracked on with the second stint.

A note from the stewards confirmed that they had looked into a Turn 7 skirmish between Gasly and Hulkenberg, but ultimately decided against any further action, before Leclerc – having just defended robustly from Russell – finally stopped for new tyres on Lap 37.

With Tsunoda and Gasly having done the same, it meant Piastri was the final driver still on his starting set of tyres, but the Australian and McLaren changed that when they pitted for new hards on Lap 39 and relinquished a temporary second place behind Norris.

After those stops, Norris led Verstappen by more than 20 seconds, with Russell another 15 seconds back in third. Hamilton was close behind his team mate in fourth but soon got reeled in and passed by Piastri, who made the most of his fresher rubber.

Sainz and Leclerc were running sixth and seventh, from Alonso, Hulkenberg and Perez, with Colapinto now outside the points-paying positions in P11, followed by RB pair Ricciardo and Tsunoda – the latter shouting over the radio to be allowed through.

Both RB and Ferrari ended up swapping their drivers’ positions, promoting Leclerc to P7 and Tsunoda to P12. “If you keep this pace, we should catch Hamilton at the end,” Leclerc was told, having lit up the timesheets with green and purple sector times.

Further ahead, Piastri continued his charge to close in on Russell and go around the outside of the Mercedes at Turn 7. Could he kick on and challenge Verstappen? It would be a tall order given the gap of 18 seconds and only 16 laps to run.

Despite his huge lead, Norris experienced another scare on Lap 45 when he brushed the wall at Turn 10 – the leader seemingly escaping without any damage. There were problems elsewhere as Russell likened his cockpit to a “sauna” and Perez reported that his car was “bouncing like a kangaroo”.

Norris put that moment to one side to pump in another fastest lap, pulling almost half a minute clear of Verstappen. He was then reminded to take a drink and keep “full concentration” for the final 10 laps or so to the chequered flag.

Leclerc maintained his electric pace and soon arrived on the rear of Hamilton’s car, completing a move for fifth on Lap 51 with little resistance, but like Piastri – who was unable to make inroads on Verstappen – he faced a big ask to catch Russell.

While Leclerc pushed on, Magnussen tagged the wall in the first sector and picked up a puncture, meaning he had to limp around most of the track before pitting and fitting soft tyres. That threw a spanner in the works for Norris, who wanted the fastest lap bonus.

With Magnussen promptly setting a new benchmark, Norris stepped up his pace again to reclaim the record – his engineer then intervening and asking him to “chill out”. In any case, the fastest lap went to Ricciardo, who helped the Red Bull family after his own late stop.

Norris expertly saw out the final few laps to secure the win and add to his triumphs in Miami and the Netherlands early this season, finishing well clear of second-placed Verstappen and third-placed team mate Piastri.

Leclerc did all he could to catch Russell but ultimately had to settle for fifth, with Hamilton and Sainz the final drivers to stay on the lead lap and Alonso, Hulkenberg and Perez the final points scorers of the day.

Colapinto was a fine 11th, continuing what has been a strong start to his F1 career after replacing Logan Sargeant, placing ahead of Tsunoda, Ocon, Stroll, the Saubers of Zhou and Bottas, Gasly and final finisher Ricciardo.

Haas called Magnussen back to the pits shortly after he pitted for those soft tyres, as Albon pondered what might have been following that first-corner drama and early retirement due to his Williams car overheating.

Key quote

“It was an amazing race,” said winner Norris. “A few too many close calls, a couple of little moments in the middle, but it was well controlled I think otherwise. The car was mega. I could push, we were flying the whole race and at the end could just chill, so it was a nice race. Still tough, I’m a bit out of breath. A very fun one!”

What’s next

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