George Russell converted his pole position into victory for Mercedes at the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix ahead of Max Verstappen and Lando Norris. Lando’s podium position secured the 2025 Constructor’s Championship for McLaren.
I didn’t have Mercedes and George on the podium in my fantasy GP picks but delighted to see them win such a challenging race given the error George had here a couple years ago. George’s teammate, Kimi Antonelli, came home fifth and a great result for the entire team.
A big win for George Russell, who still hasn’t be signed by Mercedes, is getting better and better. He’s been terrific all season long and while contract negotiations are complicated, it’s clear Mercedes should resign him in short order. Also a win for Kimi to finish in top 5 and the 19-year-old needed the success to build some confidence and did so passing and beating Charle Leclerc.
A win for Lando Norris and McLaren to secure the constructor’s title and Lando clawed back points on Oscar Piastri in the driver’s championship. Oscar wasn’t happy. McLaren have done such a terrific job to win two titles on the trot and a big hat tip to all the men and women at McLaren!
A win for Max Verstappen and Red Bull for a P2 finish and if Max and the team are continuing to develop their car, Max could nab P2 in the driver’s title so beating both McLaren drivers is a big win. So that’s two wins and a P2 in the last three races and that’s a great turnaround for the team and Max.
Fernando Alonso, Ollie Bearman and Carlos Sainz all had a win with 8th for Fernando, 9th for Ollie and 10th for Carlos who started dead last. A penalty for Lewis Hamilton dropped him behind Alonso in eighth giving the Spaniard a P7 as a result.
A fail for Ferrari who struggled on Sunday and were beaten by both Mercedes driver’s and this will make it very difficult to challenge for P2 in the Constructor’s championship. Heading in to Singapore, there were only a handful of points at play but they now leave Marina Bay with a 25-point delta.
A fail for Racing Bulls with an engine issue for Isack Hadjar that left him slow from mid-race onward and Liam Lawson, who crashed twice during practice sessions, only able to claw back to P15.
A fail for Yuki Tsunoda who was lapped by Max. If he was running at the sharp end, Red Bull could have made a better challenge this year. Maybe the different front wing he had at Singapore had something to do with it.
Brutal weekend for Sauber with Gabriel Bortoleto in P17 and Nico Hulkenberg in P20. We’ve grown accustomed to seeing them punch above their weight in recent races but Singapore brought them crashing back down to reality.
Also another brutal weekend for Alpine with Pierre Gasly in P19 and Franco Colapinto in P16.
How does George win the race in dominant fashion and not get driver of the race in the F1 voting? Is there something about George I am just missing? I get he’s a quirky personality but so was Raikkonen, Hakkinen, Bottas, Yuki etc.
Two years in a row that we’ve not had a safety car or no VSC. I am sure there were plenty teams, like Williams, banking on a SC but it never came.
Again, slow stop for McLaren but with Oscar Piastri this time.
A tough circuit on brakes saw Lewis’s fail on last couple laps but also Ocon said he had brake issues as well and we did see Alex’s brakes fail in practice. Interesting we didn’t see more braking issues.
Also not sure I completely understand why to upshift and downshift issues are for Max and Red Bull. They’ve struggled with that all year.
MARIO ISOLA – PIRELLI DIRECTOR OF MOTORSPORT“First of all, congratulations to George Russell for the win and to McLaren for the Constructors’ title! “As for the race, we had yet further confirmation that the current generation of cars has reached such a sophisticated level of development that overtaking is really complicated, especially on a track like Singapore, which by its very nature does not make this an easy task. On top of that, the teams and drivers have become ever more adept at tyre management, to the extent that we saw stints of 50 laps on the Medium and 38 on the Soft. To be honest, even if we had brought a theoretical C8 compound here it wouldn’t have made much difference to how the race unfolded! “This evening, as we had expected, all three compounds were competitive. At the start, the Soft became an interesting choice, partly because of the rain that fell shortly before the cars went out onto the grid, after which it proved to be very quick, as demonstrated by Hamilton and Sainz as they fought their way back. All in all, the Medium offered the best balance between consistency and performance, but the Hard also delivered good performance.” |
Singapore GP Results:
|
POS. |
NO. |
DRIVER |
TEAM |
LAPS |
TIME / RETIRED |
PTS. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
63 |
George Russell |
Mercedes |
62 |
1:40:22.367 |
25 |
|
2 |
1 |
Max Verstappen |
Red Bull Racing |
62 |
+5.430s |
18 |
|
3 |
4 |
Lando Norris |
McLaren |
62 |
+6.066s |
15 |
|
4 |
81 |
Oscar Piastri |
McLaren |
62 |
+8.146s |
12 |
|
5 |
12 |
Kimi Antonelli |
Mercedes |
62 |
+33.681s |
10 |
|
6 |
16 |
Charles Leclerc |
Ferrari |
62 |
+45.996s |
8 |
|
7 |
44 |
Lewis Hamilton |
Ferrari |
62 |
+80.251s |
6 |
|
8 |
14 |
Fernando Alonso |
Aston Martin |
62 |
+80.667s |
4 |
|
9 |
87 |
Oliver Bearman |
Haas |
62 |
+93.527s |
2 |
|
10 |
55 |
Carlos Sainz |
Williams |
61 |
+1 lap |
1 |
|
11 |
6 |
Isack Hadjar |
Racing Bulls |
61 |
+1 lap |
0 |
|
12 |
22 |
Yuki Tsunoda |
Red Bull Racing |
61 |
+1 lap |
0 |
|
13 |
18 |
Lance Stroll |
Aston Martin |
61 |
+1 lap |
0 |
|
14 |
23 |
Alexander Albon |
Williams |
61 |
+1 lap |
0 |
|
15 |
30 |
Liam Lawson |
Racing Bulls |
61 |
+1 lap |
0 |
|
16 |
43 |
Franco Colapinto |
Alpine |
61 |
+1 lap |
0 |
|
17 |
5 |
Gabriel Bortoleto |
Kick Sauber |
61 |
+1 lap |
0 |
|
18 |
31 |
Esteban Ocon |
Haas |
61 |
+1 lap |
0 |
|
19 |
10 |
Pierre Gasly |
Alpine |
61 |
+1 lap |
0 |
|
20 |
27 |
Nico Hulkenberg |
Kick Sauber |
61 |
+1 lap |
0 |
|
* Provisional results. Lewis received 5s penalty dropping him to P8. |
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This track without crashes is a zero
“Again, slow stop for McLaren but with Oscar Piastri this time”
That’s due to Papaya Insurance (ref Lollipopman f1 comics)
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lollipopman+f1+comics