- Norris takes his third win of the season
- McLaren driver now 52 points behind Verstappen
- Verstappen finishes second, Piastri third
- Ricciardo takes fastest lap to deny Norris a point
SINGAPORE, Sept 23 — McLaren’s Lando Norris dominated the Singapore Grand Prix from start to finish yesterday to take another chunk out of Max Verstappen’s Formula One championship lead.
The 24-year-old Briton roared away from pole position at the floodlit Marina Bay circuit and, despite twice brushing the unforgiving walls, led every lap to the chequered flag.
Verstappen started and finished second for Red Bull, a massive 20.945 seconds behind his main rival, and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was third from fifth on the grid in a sweltering night race run over 62 laps in exhausting heat and humidity.
Verstappen’s 59-point lead over Norris was cut to 52 with six rounds, including three sprints, remaining, while McLaren stretched their lead over Red Bull in the constructors’ standings to 41 points.
There are a maximum 180 points still to be won in the drivers’ championship.
“It was an amazing race. A few too many close calls, I had a couple of little moments in the middle, but it was well controlled, I think,” said Norris after his third career victory and third of the season.
“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, but a very fun one.”
Norris could have also had a bonus point for fastest lap but RB’s Daniel Ricciardo pitted for a third time for soft tyres and snatched it at the end of what many suspect could be the Australian’s last race.
Extraordinarily for Singapore, there was no safety car deployment in a largely incident-free race with only two retirements.
“On a weekend when we knew that we were going to struggle, to be P2 is a good achievement,” said Verstappen after what amounted to a lonely race.
“Of course we are not happy with second. Now we just have to try and improve more and more and that’s what we will try to do.”
Total nightmare
George Russell took fourth place for Mercedes with Charles Leclerc a fighting fifth for Ferrari, after starting ninth, and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton sixth for Mercedes.
Last year’s winner Carlos Sainz was seventh for Ferrari, ahead of fellow-Spaniard Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin and Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg with Red Bull’s Sergio Perez taking the final point.
“Today was a total nightmare,” declared Perez, who has scored only 144 points compared to Verstappen’s 331 and has not been on the podium since China in April.
Ricciardo was 18th and gained no benefit from the fastest lap, with the point going only to those in the top 10, but could at least add another achievement to his record and help his former team mate and friend Verstappen.
“Thank you, Daniel,” the champion said over the team radio when he was told.
Norris made a clean start, the first time this season he had managed to hold the lead from pole, with Verstappen slotting in behind.
The Briton then pulled away with a string of fastest laps and by lap 13 had a seven second advantage, two more than the target his race engineer had set six laps earlier to protect him during the pitstop period.
Norris then stretched the gap to more than the time it would take to pit.
Verstappen came in first, on lap 29, and Norris followed one lap later without drama.
Behind them, Piastri made crucial overtakes while Hamilton complained Mercedes had pitted him too early after he started third.
Williams rookie Franco Colapinto, in his third race after replacing American Logan Sargeant, finished 11th while team mate Alex Albon retired. Haas’s Kevin Magnussen, returning from a one-race ban, also stopped in the closing laps. — Reuters
