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This Grand Prix – Singapore

Hello, welcome to This Singapore Grand Prix. After eighteen rounds, McLaren has wrapped up a second consecutive constructors but what will the fallout be after the contact between its drivers on the outcome of the drivers’ championship? That’s likely to dominate the week ahead. Meanwhile, George Russell took his second win in one of his strongest weekends of the season, looking back over this weekend and this wrap up there could be nuggets of positivity for most of the teams

Weekend recap

FP1 saw Fernando Alonso set a 31.116 to put himself a tenth and a half faster than Charles Leclerc. In the unrepresentative session, the Aston Martin driver put himself top in the final minutes of the session with Leclerc going a tenth and a quarter ahead of Max Verstappen. The McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, only fifth and sixth on a track they are expected to dominate.

FP2 in representative conditions under the lights, Piastri was fastest in a chaotic and interrupted session with a 30.714 to go over a tenth and a quarter ahead of Isack Hadjar. Verstappen, meanwhile, was two hundredths behind Hadjar as he went two hundredths ahead of Fernando Alonso.

FP3 was topped by Max Verstappen with a 30.148 to go, just under two hundredths faster than Piastri. George Russell split the two McLarens with half a tenth behind Piastri as he went four hundredths ahead of his teammate Kimi Antonelli, while Norris set the same lap time as the Italian.

Qualifying saw Russell beat Verstappen by under two tenths to take pole after the Dutchman backed out of his lap after feeling he had been blocked by Norris as he came into the pits. The Englishman’s first lap did see him touch the wall, but his final attempt saw another improvement. Kimi Antonelli managed to split the two McLarens’s the Italian was just under a hundredth and a half behind Piastri as he went half a tenth faster than Norris.

Russell converted pole into an early lead to take almost five and a half seconds ahead of Verstappen. The Mercedes driver looked to have control of the race as he covered off the Red Bull at the start, and then started to pull away from the Red Bull. After a tough start to the weekend, Russell turned it around from Q3 onward to take victory.

Norris finished third, eight seconds ahead of his McLaren teammate Piastri, allowing he team to secure back-to-back constructors’ championships for the first time since 1998. Norris, however, found it difficult to find a way past Verstappen and spent much of the race fighting his teammate Piastri, who he finished eight seconds behind.

But, it wasn’t all plain sailing for the constructors’ champions, as there appeared to be some friction between the team over strategy after Piastri dropped behind Norris by five seconds because of a slow pit stop.

McLaren

Going into the weekend, Lando Norris says the US team’s unexpected comeback to challenge on the final day of the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black underlines why never giving up in sport is crucial.

Norris told Sky Sports in an interview that airs this weekend, he spent his weekend off from F1 “binge watching the whole of the Ryder Cup every day!”

On lessons he can learn from Team USA’s Sunday comeback, Norris said: “You can never say never, right? I guess last weekend was a really good example of don’t give up until you know it’s over. I think America proved that after a good battering on Friday and Saturday, what they can still do, what they can still achieve, and it’s very close to them almost winning.”

While team principal Andrea Stella has compared Oscar Piastri to bounce back from his uncharacteristic scrappy weekend in Baku. The championship leader had his worst weekend of the season, crashing out of qualifying and on the opening lap a fortnight ago in the Azerbaijani capital. Ahead of this weekend, Stella has confidence that Piastri will return to form.

Stella, who was Michael Schumacher’s performance engineer at Ferrari from 2002-2006, told Sky Sports, “I’ve worked with multi-champion drivers and in every season, even the most dominant, even one of the best drivers in the history of F1, like Michael Schumacher, I have seen events like this.”

“Events in which the most you take away is the learning, because things become, for some reason, difficult, and as soon as you misjudge the grip available, you get highly punished. So, a one-off for what has probably been the most solid driver in this season, a one-off weekend in which things don’t go your way, and you ultimately have lots to review.”

Well, the weekend didn’t start well for Norris and he looked dejected following a “bad day” on Friday. The Englishman could only manage fifth in FP2, just under half a second off Piastri who topped the times, in a session where he had a collision with Charles Leclerc, with Ferrari fined €10,000 for an unsafe release.

He told Sky Sports, “It’s just a difficult day for me, not feeling too great with the car. Missing all of the feelings that I had here last year. So plenty of things to work on – just a bad day. My car’s not half a second off, is it? My driving’s half a second off.”

Norris, as normal, was very self-critical. Key in these final races is how he and Piastri bounce back from difficult days, but I think that we haven’t really seen, like we did last season, a bad Friday sending him spiralling, and he needs to avoid it, disrupting him like we saw with his teammate in Baku.

Meanwhile, for Piastri, he bounced back strongly, fifth in FP1 and fastest by a tenth and a half in FP2. An upbeat Australian told reporters, “I found my feet on the medium at the end there and then [the] soft felt good. So, obviously ,not much representative race running, but the car’s been in a good place. I feel like I’ve learned a lot through today, and that’s the aim of practice. So it’s been a good day.”

Following qualifying, Norris revealed he had been unwell this weekend but refused to blame it for a disappointing session where he only managed fifth on the grid. Speaking to Sky Sports after he finished fifth on a difficult Saturday, Norris was asked about his health.

He said, “If there’s anywhere you don’t want to be poorly, it’s here. So I’m better today. Yesterday and the day before, I was struggling a little bit. It hit me pretty quickly, but it also went away relatively quickly. So I’m probably not optimal. But yeah, no excuses for today.”

Speaking about the lack of performance, he added, “I think others are just also improving. The Mercedes’ are doing a very good job. Red Bull, like we’ve seen, have been very good last weekend. So nothing’s a surprise.”

“I think the only thing is Singapore has always been a little bit of a weird one. And we know whenever we struggle with the front tyres, we struggle a lot as a team. The whole weekend, we’ve been struggling with the front tyres. In the contrary to that, we know that anytime everyone in the grid, like everyone in F1, struggles with the front tyres, like they are this weekend with the new tarmac bits. Mercedes is normally always a team that comes out on top.”

We know the only real weakness of the car is tyres and getting them to work, but we have seen Singapore be a bit of an anomaly on the calendar for the leading teams.

While McLaren sealed a second consecutive constructors’ championship with Norris third, two seconds ahead of Piastri, tension could be brewing between the title rivals following friendly fire when they made contact on the open lap. Norris rejected Piastri’s claim he was “aggressive” when he made contact at Turn Three.

In the post-race press conference, Norris initially claimed not to remember the events of the opening lap, but then the memories came flooding back. He said, “I think the start was good – the right-hand side of the grid was good. I think it was a good launch as well. So I got across and put myself in a good position to not get checked up out of Turn 1 and into Turn 2. And I just had a big gap on the inside of Oscar.”

“It was just very close. It was still slippery because it was still damp in places and drying out. And I think I just clipped the back of Max’s car and that’s just given me a little correction. But then that was it. So yeah, good in terms of I got two positions. And if I didn’t get them there, I probably would never have got them.”

Norris, before the incident, had contact with Verstappen. I think he was correcting that moment when he went into Piastri. Yes Piastri was annoyed, but he didn’t have the whole picture. Norris put some of it down to slippery conditions after he made up places at the start.

That cost him momentum and Piastri was over half a car length ahead at the exit – but altering his trajectory slightly to avoid contact with Norris cost him traction in the drive towards Turn Two. To me that was a racing incident as it was at the start and it did break the internal paypa rules on paper, we don’t know the exact rules but we can assume one is ‘don’t hit your teammate’, I think it was due to other factors at play as explained above, similar to what the stewards would say no driver was “wholly or predominantly to blame”.

Ferrari

Lewis Hamilton has confirmed the death of his dog Roscoe following a short battle with pneumonia. The bulldog was admitted to hospital late last week and suffered a heart attack and was placed in a coma. After four days, Hamilton had to make the incredibly difficult decision to put him to sleep.

Writing on social media, Hamilton said, “After four days on life support, fighting with every bit of strength he had, I had to make the hardest decision of my life and say goodbye to Roscoe. He never stopped fighting, right until the very end. I feel so grateful and honoured to have shared my life with such a beautiful soul, an angel and true friend.”

“Bringing Roscoe into my life was the best decision I ever made, and I will forever cherish the memories we created together. Although I lost Coco, I have never been faced with putting a dog to sleep before, though I know my mum and many close friends have. It is one of the most painful experiences, and I feel a deep connection to everyone who has gone through the loss of a beloved pet. Although it was so hard, having him was one of the most beautiful parts of life, to love so deeply and to be loved in return.”

Hamilton adopted Roscoe in 2013, and he often accompanied him to race weekends, becoming one of the characters in the paddock and exceeding 1.3 million followers on Instagram. Last week he withdrew from testing at Mugello and was replaced by Guanyu Zhou.

Charles Leclerc says his collision in the pit lane with Lando Norris during FP2 was caused by a misjudgment by the team. Leclerc was released into the pathway of Norris down the pit lane, causing him to drive into the McLaren, which subsequently lost its front wing as it then collided with the wall.

This came in the final third of a twice red-flagged FP2, with the collision occurring at the second restart in which lots of cars were trying to leave at once due to the limited running. That included Oscar Piastri being right behind team-mate Norris the whole time, something which Leclerc believes is what threw his Ferrari mechanics off.

Leclerc said, “It was a bit of confusion with the two McLarens going out. It looked like they were going out at the same time. So he [his mechanic] thought that they would go out a bit slow, and so I didn’t have the message to stop. On these cases, you kind of rely on the team. But these things happen, and it was also in a tricky moment.”

Leclerc eventually finished ninth in that session, but he had a positive opening practice recording the second-quickest time, leaving him upbeat for the weekend. Reflecting on Friday, he added, “Good FP1, very difficult FP2. It’s been just a very messy FP2 with the traffic and with the red flags and with the pitlane incident. So, lots of things going on which haven’t been very positive, but we’ll reset and come back stronger. I think the pace is in the car, so that’s a good thing.”

Things didn’t get better in qualifying for Leclerc and he lamented his weekend after qualifying seventh. Throughout this weekend, it appeared that he had gone backwards after being eighth, sixth and seventh across the three qualifying segments.

Leclerc explained to Canal+, he said, “We got off to a good start in FP1. Then we had to make some tweaks, and unfortunately, we’ve been struggling since FP2 – especially me, I must say, as I was nowhere in FP2 and FP3.”

“I’ve been completely unable to feel the car over the last two weekends, and what’s weird is that has been on street circuits where I typically am rather confident. We need to work and understand what’s wrong, because I’m not at the level where I should be and we’re losing points.”

The Monacan was struggling for grip a allowing teammate Hamilton by just under a tenth, for the first time since Silverstone. He explained he has a lot of understeer which made the car snappy and unpredictable, as it made the car more unpredictable after a thought weekend in Baku.

Asked if his current struggle was circuit-specific, the Monegasque pondered: “I hope it’s circuit-specific, but for now I don’t quite have the explanation, because it’s not like we changed massively the car in the last two races.”

Hamilton was given a five second time penalty which demoted him to eight behind Fernando Alonso for exceeded track limits “multiple” times during the last laps of the Grand Prix after his front brakes failed and he tried to nurse his car home to the anger of Alonso.

In a foul-mouthed radio rant, Alonso said: “I cannot f****** believe it. I mean, I cannot f****** believe it. I cannot f****** believe it. Is it safe to drive with no brakes? For me, you cannot drive when the car is unsafe. Sometimes they try to disqualify me with no mirror, and now you have no brakes and everything is fine? I doubt it.”

Hamilton had finished the race four tenths ahead of his former teammate, but the penalty demoted him behind Alonso.

The stewards said: “During the hearing, the driver confirmed that he left the track at several occasions. He was trying to manage a brakes issue situation. This being said, after further investigation, and in accordance with the list of exemptions foreseen in the Driving Standards Guidelines, the Stewards considered that this was not a justifiable reason and apply the usual penalty for such type of infringement. This was not contested by the team representative nor the driver.”

Hamilton’s strategy may have contributed to the issue as he was the only driver in the top ten to do a two-stop race, which would have made him push harder on track and contributed to the braking issue.

Red Bull

Advisor Helmut Marko described Friday ‘as the best in years’ in Singapore a circuit where it has struggled despite there dominance. The team hasn’t taken pole in Marina Bay since the beginning of the hybrid era in 2014, and Sergio Perez winning in 2022.

Max Verstappen was third in both of Friday’s practices, 0.276s and 0.143s off the top of the times, respectively, with McLaren, Racing Bulls, Red Bull and Aston Martin within two tenths of one another in the second session. Marko said, “It was the best Friday since I don’t know how many years here. So, we definitely made a step forward. I think in qualifying it will be within hundreds of seconds.”

“Long run, nobody could do, because of the [two] red flags. But basically, Max is happy with the car. There are still some little things to adjust, and in the end it will be very, very tight.”

Verstappen had previously complained about the car’s behaviour on bumps and kerbs, likening it to a kangaroo over team radio during practice at street circuits, but the early signs are promising after the team brought a new front wing to the Singapore track.

But Marko added, “The car is better. The car, you know, in the past he was always complaining, ‘jumping like a kangaroo’, and now it’s much better over the kerbs, and also understeer is less. So, little tweaks, and let’s hope that they are working.” Marko however warned despite Red Bull looking “competitive,” it was too early to predict ahead of qualifying.

Following qualifying Verstappen believed he missed out on challenging for pole after getting caught in Lando Norris’s dirty air in the last sector. Verstappen started P2 after being 0.182 behind George Russell, but then being caught in the dirty air cost him half a tenth. It also caused him to understeer and abort his lap at Turn Sixteen.

He said, “That’s what happens when there’s a car in front of you just cruising, just two seconds in front. That’s noted, [and] will be remembered as well.” Verstappen had taken the risk of leaving it late, and added that drivers on slow laps know to leave bigger gaps to cars on flying laps in Singapore due to the impact dirty air can have on the car behind.”

“I mean, the lap itself was coming nicely, but again, around here, to nail all the corners is very tough. But yeah, then unfortunately I had a car like two seconds in front of me in the final chicane. In qualifying, you cannot have that. You cannot have any kind of disturbance when you want to push in Q3. And that’s what happened.”

Following the race, Verstappen had mix feelings after he “struggled a lot” in the race. You could hear throughout the race him complaining about shift problems, at one point saying his car was “undrivable” after nearly crashing at Connaught, before finishing second.

He said, “It was a bit more difficult than I would have hoped for, to be honest. For whatever reason in the race I was struggling a lot with the downshifts and upshifts of the car. It was giving me a lot of pushing under braking, which on a street circuit you don’t want! We didn’t do a proper long run [during practice], so that doesn’t help. But it’s not like it’s a mystery why it didn’t go so well in the race, so we just need to analyse that.”

Verstappen still believed that second was the best result possible because overtaking can be difficult around here and Russell I think had the better car this weekend.

Mercedes

George Russell says that his new contract with Mercedes must be “done right”, but does not expect negotiations to run into the post-season. The Englishman, who is the most high-profile driver without a seat confirmed for 2026 though it appears to be “a formality,” says CEO and team principal Toto Wolff.

Russell said, ahead of this weekend’s race, “I think for any driver, when you get to a certain point in your career, things have be done right.. Every time you renew a contract, it’s the most important one of your life, and it has to be done with good care. There’s nothing to worry about. It will get done.”

“It’s just about something that’s fair, mutually beneficial. I think that’s what we all will chase. It’s obviously different for certain drivers who may have a bit more power, may have a bit less power. No more updates, nothing to report and I’ll be glad to tell you all once there is.”

Kimi Antonelli qualified fourth nearly four tenths off his teammate Russell, after “emotion took over.” It was a difficult session for him after aborting his first run in Q1 and being cleared of impeding Carlos Sainz. Q2 was scrappy with laps deleted for track limits he had it all to do on his last run.

Antonelli had a ‘moment’ which cost him half a second compared with his teammate, though he clawed much of it back by the end of the lap to go third overall. While in Q3 he struggled to find the same improvement as Russell and that made him slower

He said, “I just started to drive a bit tense, because I felt I had a real shot to at least front row – because we were quick. But then I started to overdrive. I started to push more and more. Starting to carry a lot of speed into the corners. But just, it was too much over the limit.”

Russell then found even more pace through Q3 while Antonelli didn’t, his second run in Q3 was not only slower than his first, it was slower than his fastest lap in Q2. data indicates Antonelli braked and got off the throttle later at Turn 1 in his first Q3 lap than he did in his Q2 lap, then noticeably later on the brakes into Turns 7, 8 and 16, more aggressive on the throttle between Turns 7 and 8, but he had to linger on the brakes longer at Turn 18 and wasn’t able to blend the throttle in as quickly.”

Aston Martin

Fernando Alonso believes that future success is “more or less guaranteed” for Aston Martin in F1’s new era, but admits that his “only question mark” is over when this will happen and whether he will still be driving for the team at that point. Over the last three years the team has signed a wave of technical staff including managing technical partner Adrain Newey, Chief Technical Officer Enrico Cardile and CEO and Team Principal Andy Cowell have also joined the project.

As such, when asked during an interview on Aston Martin’s website if he feels that all of the pieces are in place for the squad to succeed during this new phase, Alonso responded: “I hope so. I mean, I’m pretty convinced about that. The only thing is when. That’s probably my only question mark from this project.”

“In my case, driving in the last couple of years of my career, obviously, I want to taste the success of the Aston Martin project. But I know that everything takes a little bit of time to glue all the pieces together. Aston Martin fighting for and winning the World Championship is more or less guaranteed in the future. We have everything that is needed to fight for a championship.”

While he admitted that over the remaining races that the gap to the front runners was too much and required energy and effort. Alonso believes that next year would be an opportunity as it was a rest for everyone, but it was up to the team to do a better job.

Alonso was encouraged by the teams performance during practice saying the team feel “more optimistic” about their chances than at the last two races. The Spaniard topped FP1 and was fourth under the lights in FP2 as the team once again performed well on high downforce circuits.

This followed more difficult races in Monza and Baku, as the team looked to return to points-scoring ways and improve on their current P7 spot in the Teams’ Championship. He said, “It seems a little bit better than the previous Grands Prix. Let’s try to fine-tune the set-up; it’s still not in a happy place, especially on the front axle, still a little bit too much understeer. It’s something to work on tonight.”

Alonso, who has a pole position and two wins to his name around Marina Bay, added: “I think since the first lap in FP1 we were in a comfortable place, and we were able to find the limits quite quickly. In FP2 obviously the red flags didn’t help to see the full picture, so I don’t know the top teams if they put the lap together or not, but let’s see if we can be in Q3 tomorrow and [score] points on Sunday. I think both sessions in the top four, probably it’s the best Friday so far. But as I said, sometimes on Friday we run with different programmes than the others, or different.”

Alonso described his seventh place in the race “a very good race” for the team, as he finished eighth on the road before hamilton’s penalty. The two-time champion started tenth before making up two places early on, before the sole pit stop sequence of the race.

A slow stop dropped Alonso back behind the Racing Bulls driver before he was able to eventually overtake and gapped the field behind before closing on Hamilton in the final stages, the Ferrari driver struggling with a brake issue.

He said, “It was a vey good race for us. The car was fast, the car felt fast in the first stint, we opened a nice gap with the soft tyre, lasted longer than we expected so that was very good news. Then a slow pit stop but the car was still very fast in the second stint and we finished in the same position.”

“Some fun battles, Singapore is never easy to overtake but as I said, I had an advantage on the tyre as well. Everyone fitted the hard in the second stint, I fitted the medium, so that was a good call from the team and I had this tyre advantage that gave the opportunity to overtake.”

Speaking about his race where he finished thirteenth, Lance Stroll added “”We did the best we could. We tried to hang it out there and wait for a Safety Car in the middle of the race which never came. P13 was kind of the best we could do today.”

Williams

Team principal James Vowles has announced an urgent investigation into why both Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz were disqualified from the qualifying session. Albon and Sainz initially qualified in twelfth and thirteenth on the grid at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, the FIA found their cars to be in breach of technical regulations regarding the DRS.

The FIA said, “”During post-qualifying scrutineering, the rear wing of the car was found to be noncompliant with the Technical Regulations. The uppermost rear wing element adjustable positions were checked. The DRS in the state of deployment exceeded the maximum limit of 85mm on both sides of the rear wing outer area.”

Vowles has since released the following statement: “During FIA scrutineering after Qualifying, the rear wings on both our cars failed DRS slot gap checks. As a result, Alex and Carlos have been disqualified from Qualifying for tomorrow’s Singapore Grand Prix. This is bitterly disappointing for the team and we are urgently investigating how this happened.”

“At no point were we seeking a performance advantage and the rear wings had passed our own checks earlier in the day, but there is only one measurement that matters and we fully accept the FIA ruling.” This meant Albon started nineteenth having out-qualified Sainz by just over three hundredths.

Cadaliac

Cadillac has signed the former organiser of the Miami Grand Prix president Tyler Epp as global head of commercial strategy. Epp served as president of the Miami Grand Prix from its inaugural race in 2022.

The race at the Hard Rock Stadium has gone from strength to strength since joining the F1 calendar, attracting sell-out crowds and drawing in four of the five largest live US TV audiences in the history of the championship. Before this he has spent more than two decades in senior management across multiple sports, including NASCAR and the NLF.

He said, “I’ve spent so much of my career in racing, and the past several years helping redefine what American motorsports can be. I can’t think of a more exciting and promising opportunity to galvanize our sport in the United States and beyond than this one.”

“The Cadillac Formula 1 Team is poised to become a global force in F1 that’s rooted in American tradition and ingenuity, I’m incredibly proud to join this effort from the very beginning.”

CEO of Cadillac F1 team and TWG Motorsport, Dan Towriss, added: “We could not have found a better leader and visionary to build out the commercial arm of our team. His work shaping the Miami Grand Prix into one of the marquee events on the Formula 1 calendar demonstrates his unique command of the sport domestically and worldwide.”=

Team principal Graeme Lowdon added, “It requires incredible leadership to successfully build a team from the ground up, and it takes someone exceptional to execute the type of vision and ambitions we have for the Cadillac Formula 1 Team. Tyler has a proven track record of cultivating organizations that set the standard in Formula 1, and I’m confident that his operational expertise will be a critical asset to our organization.”

Facts and stats (F1.com)

• George Russell set pole position, the seventh of his career, with a new track record,0 a 01:29.158, which was also the first for Mercedes since Lewis Hamilton started from pole in 2018.
• Verstappen secured his fourth front row start in Singapore, all of which have been achieved by never taking pole position. The Red Bull driver has out-qualified both McLaren drivers at the last three Grands Prix.
• Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli has qualified in the top-four at consecutive races for the first time in his career.
• Lando Norris will start fifth, the McLaren driver having qualified outside the top-four for the second consecutive race.
• Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton will start sixth, which signifies the first time the seven-time World Champion has started outside the top-five in Singapore, while team mate Charles Leclerc directly behind was only out-qualified by the Briton for the fifth time this season.
• McLaren have won back-to-back championships for the first time since 1988-1991. McLaren have won the championship with six Grands Prix remaining, tying Red Bull’s 2023 record.
• Russell is the sixth different winner in the last six Singapore Grands Prix.

Russell started from pole, meaning the polesitter won for the 11th time in 16 Singapore Grands Prix.

• The top four in the Drivers’ Championship finished in the top four tonight, but in reverse order of their championship positions.
• There were no Safety Car interventions for the second consecutive year in Singapore. It was the first-ever Singapore Grand Prix without a retirement.
• Max Verstappen took P2 for Red Bull, meaning Marina Bay remains the only current circuit on which he has never won. Verstappen has now finished second in Marina Bay three times without ever winning.

Results Summary

Championship Standings