Lando Norris dominated the Singapore Grand Prix ahead of title rival Max Verstappen, taking another small bite out of the Dutchman’s points lead.
Norris executed a perfect getaway from the line to hold the lead from pole position for the first time in his career. Verstappen slotted n behind him and kept him honest in the opening laps, pushing the Briton into setting a faster pace than the field had expected in a race ordinarily dictated by bunching up the field by running at a pedestrian speed.
By lap 5, however, it was clear Norris had a little extra in reserve, breaking the DRS and extending his margin above 2s. In fact Norris’s advantage was even greater than it looked. Shortly afterwards the team asked him to increase the gap to 5s by around lap 15 to protect against the undercut. He easily beat the target, opening the required margin by lap 10, and by lap 15 he had 9s in hand.
The gap kept growing from there until, on lap 29, he was 22.7s ahead of Verstappen when the Dutchman dived into the pits.
Norris, who locked up and thought he’d damaged his front wing, stopped the following lap without losing the lead, his margin to Verstappen practically undiminished. From there it was an imperious cruise to the finish, with the Briton reducing his title deficit by seven points, down to 52 points.
“It was an amazing race.” he said. “The car was mega. I could push. We were flying the whole race.
“At the end we could just chill. Still tough — I’m a bit out of breath — but a fun one.”
Verstappen was satisfied to finished second on what Red Bull Racing had expected to be its worst race of the season, this having been the only grand prix the team didn’t win last year.
“I think on a weekend we knew we were going to struggle, to be P2 is a good achievement,” he said. “Of course we’re not happy with second; now we just have to try and improve more and more.”
Oscar Piastri made it a double podium for McLaren after having to pass both Mercedes drivers in the second half of the race, having run deep before making his first pit stop.
Hamilton had started third but gambled on the soft tire for his opening stint. It forced him into an early stop, on lap 17, that left him defenseless to Piastri and his much fresher rubber.
Russell ran a more conventional strategy, stopping after 27 laps, but his Mercedes was no match for the McLaren, with Piastri showing similar pace to Norris when in clear air. By lap 45 the Australian was up into third, but with Verstappen 18s up the road, his charge ended there.
“It was a good recovery from qualifying yesterday,” Piastri said, having started fifth after failing to put together his fastest lap in Q3. “To get back to the podium is a great result.
“We had a really quick car underneath us and a good strategy to get past Mercedes. Thanks to the team. The car was exceptional this weekend, and some great points for the whole team.”
McLaren’s double podium extended the team’s advantage over Red Bull Racing to 41 points on the constructors title table.
Russell clung on to fourth ahead of the fast-finishing Charles Leclerc, who recovered from ninth to fifth in a case of what could have been with a better qualifying performance.
The Monegasque demonstrated the Ferrari car’s innate pace around this layout by biding his time until lap 37 before making his first stop and dropping only to eighth in the order. He made quick and easy work of Fernando Alonso and was team-ordered past teammate Carlos Sainz, who was recovering from a poor start, to sit himself behind the Mercedes drivers with the advantage of a considerable tire offset.
Hamilton was no match for Leclerc, and the Ferrari driver reached Russell’s gearbox with three laps remaining, but by then the best of his rubber had been used, and the Briton’s strong traction on corner exit retained him the place.
Hamilton finished a comfortable but disappointed sixth, down from third, ahead of Sainz, whose race was undone by running off the road at the first turn.
Alonso finished a solid eighth at the head of the midfield points finishers, seeing off Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez, the Red Bull Racing driver gaining three places from his underwhelming starting position.
Franco Colapinto was solid on his first visit to Singapore, finishing just 1.6s from a point.
Yuki Tsunoda finished 12th for RB ahead of Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll, Zhou Guanyu, Valtteri Bottas and Pierre Gasly down to 17th.
Daniel Ricciardo, in what could be his last grand prix start, finished 18th after starting on softs and being switched to a fruitless two-stop strategy later in the race. With nothing to lose, RB brought him in for a set of softs at the end of the race, with which the Australian set the fastest lap to deny Norris the bonus point for fastest lap, benefitting stablemate Verstappen’s title defense.
Kevin Magnussen and Alex Albon were the race’s only two retirements, the former after picking up a puncture and the latter with an overheating car early in the race.
