Russell takes controlled victory in Singapore from Verstappen and Norris
- Meghana Sree
- Oct 5
- 7 min read
Updated: Oct 6
George Russell executed a dominant victory under the floodlights of Singapore, joined by Max Verstappen and Lando Norris on the podium, while McLaren celebrate securing back-to-back Constructors' Championships.
Formula One returns to the venue of its original night race, Singapore. After an intense qualifying session that saw George Russell beat the field to pole position, the Briton bested his competitors yet again during the race with a controlled victory under pressure.
Max Verstappen fended off Lando Norris, who had jumped Oscar Piastri at the start with an aggressive move for third place — the gap between Piastri and Norris down to 22 points now.
McLaren also secured an overdue Constructors' title, celebrating the accomplishment with Norris' podium and Piastri's P4.
Additionally, the Singapore Grand Prix saw zero Safety Cars for the second time in a row: a first for this circuit.
Race Report
With Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly starting from the pitlane, 18 cars lined up on the grid under the lights, led by Russell and Verstappen in second on the soft tyres.
Russell had a clean getaway while Norris shot off the grid and climbed up to third, making contact with his teammate Piastri and brushing Verstappen ahead – Piastri then trailing behind.
Russell held on to the lead and pulled a gap to Verstappen, while further behind Charles Leclerc leaped from seventh to fifth, knocking his teammate Lewis Hamilton to seventh and Antonelli down to sixth.
Meanwhile, Piastri began to appeal on the radio for a reverse of positions, clearly not happy with Norris “barging” through. The Briton, nursing front-wing damage, continued to run in third through Lap 3.
Further back on the grid, Yuki Tsunoda had plummeted down the order after a scruffy start, tumbling down to 17th after starting 13th, while fellow Red Bull family driver Isack Hadjar made it through a tight opening lap after contact with fellow mid-field drivers.
The top five was now Russell, Verstappen, Norris, Piastri and Leclerc – the McLarens remaining intact in position much to Piastri’s vocal frustration after the team decided to let Norris keep third, the Australian deeming it “not fair”.
Come Lap 9, Russell was cruising ahead in the lead with successive fastest laps, while Verstappen in second inhibited Norris’ pace, the Briton claiming that he had good pace to go on the attack.
As the formation snaked its way through the streets of Singapore line astern, the first to break out of the parade of cars was Gabriel Bortoleto who limped to the pits with a broken front-wing end plate.
Tsunoda and Franco Colapinto followed suit, the Red Bull driver taking on the hard tyres while Colapinto switched to the mediums.
Up in eighth, Fernando Alonso with the soft tyres was beginning to back up the rest of the field behind him, following Verstappen’s tactics who was holding up Norris in a similar manner.
On Lap 17, Norris was ordered to pit – but when he didn’t enter the pitlane, it was clear that it was just a bluff from the McLaren pitwall, but to no avail as their rivals had not reacted.
Three laps later, Red Bull took matters into their own hands and called in Verstappen, who kicked off the softs and rejoined the track in seventh with the hard tyres, just ahead of Alonso.
The junior Red Bull team also got to work in the pits, Hadjar coming in then entering the track to find himself in a scrap with Formula 2 rival Colapinto.
Leclerc was the first of the Ferraris to pit, to cover off Antonelli, but met Nico Hülkenberg upon rejoining the track and managed to pass the Sauber driver with an aggressive move down the straight – clearly indicating his impatience with his race thus far.
His teammate Hamilton was called in a few laps later, while back on track, the McLarens elected to stay out to go long and hope for a potential Safety Car, much like their strategy in Monza two rounds ago.
On Lap 25, race leader Russell took a crucial 2.5-second stop, Antonelli following suit as Mercedes executed a clean double stack.
The following lap, Norris chose to box first ahead of his teammate Piastri, and finally got a much-awaited swift pit stop. Piastri came in the follow lap, but it looked like the slow pit-stop curse had transferred to Piastri this time, who had a miserable 5.2-second stop.
There was more trouble in the pits, this time for Alonso who also had a sticky stop and lost valuable time, and then delivered a feisty radio message that took the frustrated tones of a similar radio message from Spa 2017 as he declared: “If you speak to me every lap, I will disconnect the radio.”
As the race approached its half-way point after the first cycle of stops, Russell remained in control of the race with a three-second lead, followed by Verstappen and the two McLarens led by Norris.
By Lap 35, Russell had reason to sweat, and not just from the humidity – Verstappen had begun to reel him in, chipping away and bringing the gap down to 2.8 seconds.
Further behind, Liam Lawson, Lance Stroll and Carlos Sainz were running in the final points-paying positions as they were yet to stop, while right behind this pack, Alonso and Hadjar were battling it out for a net 10th, the Aston Martin veteran emerging victorious and eventually besting the rookie’s commendable defence despite a faulty Racing Bulls engine.
Back to the battle for the win, Verstappen seemed to have lost momentum after a massive lock-up, now inviting Norris into his vicinity.
With 22 laps to go, Norris claimed that he was struggling in the dirty air but was reassured by his race engineer Will Joseph that Verstappen was struggling too, encouraging him to pounce on the attack.
At the opposite end of the field, Colapinto, Tsunoda and Hülkenberg were involved in a fracas that took a second Sauber end-plate as victim. A rear lock-up for Hülkenberg soon caught him out and almost invited a Safety Car, but crucially in the story of the race, the German driver was able to keep the car out of the barriers and managed to retreat to the pits in time for damage repair.
Meanwhile at the opposite end of the field, the race leaders had caught up to the backmarkers. With Russell frustrated at the blue flags and Verstappen wrestling the balance of his car, especially in the midst of traffic, Norris’ chance to claim second was now more and more likely.
The battle for second was well and truly on, hampered only by traffic paradise.
With 10 laps to go, the pressure from Norris remained steady on Verstappen while just behind this pair, Piastri was wading through traffic himself, no doubt frustrated with how the race had panned out after starting ahead of his teammate.
Sainz soon finally pitted after 52 laps on the mediums, promoting Hadjar to the points ahead of the senior Red Bull driver Tsunoda in 11th.
Back to the Verstappen-Norris battle, the Dutchman’s first defensive move came on Lap 53 with the two cars inching close to contact but making it through cleanly without any drama.
Meanwhile, Antonelli breezed past Leclerc to take fifth, the Monegasque driver now left to look out for teammate Hamilton on fresher soft tyres, after taking a second stop in the latter stages of the race.
As the final laps ticked down, Hamilton charged past a much slower Leclerc on the old hard compounds to begin hunting down the rookie who had replaced him at Mercedes, but then radioed in saying that he’d lost his brakes – letting Leclerc through to sixth again.
Come the final lap, Norris ran out of opportunities to pass Verstappen and to close the gap to Piastri substantially in the standings. Russell took a dominant victory under the lights, stating that he “made up for three years ago”.
But the spotlight was on McLaren, who earned a historic 10th Constructors’ Championship, a back-to-back victory for the papaya team.
Verstappen, Norris, Piastri and Antonelli completed the top five followed by the Ferrari pair led by Leclerc, Alonso, Ollie Bearman and Sainz in the points – the Williams driver recovering to 10th after starting18th then pipping Hadjar with his fresher tyres for the final point.
Full results can be found here.
Championship Standings
With the Constructors' title now wrapped up, McLaren only has one more challenge: the intra-team Drivers' Championship battle between Piastri and Norris.
While Norris couldn't make it past Verstappen to put more points between himself and Piastri, he nevertheless brings the gap down to within a race win at 22 points.
Verstappen for his part takes the gap to Norris from 69 points to 41 with his P2, finishing ahead of both McLaren drivers for the third round in a row.
Back to the Constructors' standings, Mercedes' win puts them exactly 25 points ahead of Ferrari who are on 300 points.
Key Quotes
Russell was elated with his fifth career victory in F1, sharing: "Feels amazing, especially after what happened a couple of years ago.
"So grateful to the team who did an amazing job all weekend. So happy. I was a bit nervous at the beginning when I saw Max [Verstappen] on the soft!"
Verstappen for his part, stated: "The track only just got dry, so we opted to try something different. It didn't work out, the whole race was quite difficult for a few different reasons so we need to understand what went wrong today. For us, second was the maximum result."
Meanwhile, McLaren boss Zak Brown and Team Principal Andrea Stella were pleased to wrap up one title, Brown sharing: "Pretty awesome, all the men and women have done an awesome job, and all the team management.
Stella added: "It is an incredible emotion and I want to share it with the team for their incredible work. And with six races to go which is unbelievable."
Up Next
Continuing the fly-away leg of the season, F1 journeys back to the USA for the19th round in Austin. With the Constructors’ Championship now secured by McLaren, only one final victory remains up for grabs – the Drivers’ title battle will resume from 17th to 20th October.
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