GP de Singapore: Martin Brundle on the collision Lando Norris-Oscar Piastri, the victory of the title of McLaren and the victory of George Russell | F1 News

Congratulations to McLaren. With six events to go, they obtained titles of consecutive manufacturers, and at 650 points, they currently have exactly double their nearest rival and the supplier of Mercedes Benz electrical unit.

It is an impressive performance to say the least, even if they have lost their absolute advantage in the last three races.

The qualifications and the race in Singapore belonged to George Russell and to the Mercedes team. It was a dominant performance that recalls Canada earlier in the year, two very fast qualifying laps and a perfect launch of the grid gave George Control of the Race. And he knew exactly how to manage this for the next 62 laps.

It is surprising that it is only the seventh pole position of George and the fifth victory of the GP. It would be easy to suspect a higher number, but it was a reminder that he spent a large part of his beginning of his career in the desert of a team of Williams in difficulty before spending upstairs to the Gang Works Mercedes.

The whole speech was that Max Verstappen had a long blow to beat the two pilots of McLaren to the championship, and McLaren seal this title of the manufacturers, but after being despite and crushed his car in the barriers on Friday, Russell made the headlines.

As we are used to it, the field is so closely matched in terms of performance now and we, F1 fans, really need to cherish these moments, even if the overtaking has become more and more difficult with such highly loaded and well -sought -after cars. This is difficult there, which means that if a driver has a relatively disappointing qualification performance, it will not only be a row or two on the grid, but closer to five rows.

The McLaren excels in long high speed corners and track surfaces with wear and degradation of high tires, and we have not been recently. The team expects the normal service to resume in Brazil, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, and that it is relatively better in Austin, but it seems clear that Red Bull and Mercedes have reduced the gap.

Unfortunately, the same thing cannot be said for Ferrari, who continues to be out of the main rhythm, although the best of the others despite two good pilots at Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton. Leclerc would end this race in sixth century around 46 seconds at the drift of the winner, and Hamilton one eighth without brake despite cooking his car at home.

“Opportunistic and brilliant of Norris”

There was a decent rain storm for about an hour before the cars go to the grid, and this circuit can take an age to dry, but it had been sunny all day and the surface had a lot of residual heat and therefore in fact dried fairly quickly, so that everyone started on smooth or medium -sized compound tires.

The racing line for F1 and all the support races is at the bottom on the right side of the pit directly on this temporary city circuit, and it is therefore much cleaner and more exhilarating. This meant that Russell launched well, but drivers such as Verstappen and Hamilton on the left, less.

This has in turn put Piastri near Verstappen and opened the door inside for the quick start of Norris to successfully attack and claim the inner line for the three. It was opportunistic and quite brilliant on his part, but on the damp surface and marked the back of the Red Bull of Verstappen and damaged his front wing, he continued to overcome the elbows by bouncing on the teammate Piastri, who was not impressed to say the least. The racing commissioners were less concerned with the first round and no penalty was applied.

Piastri called on the team to settle this given the “contactless” rules between them, which they refused. It would have been a fiery debriefing after the race, and I have no doubt that the dynamics between the two McLaren pilots will change irrevocably in the future. It was just a matter of time.

Maybe McLaren should now let their two pilots detach, gloves, between them, between them without interference. All nuclear repercussions will be tempered by the need to finish the races, to score points, to avoid the penalties of the in progress, to avoid Verstappen to catch the pair and to miss the latest specifications of the parts while the team is concentrated on 2026.

Just like returning to Monza, the team asked Norris, who was the main McLaren with the first rights of stops, to abandon this field to help his teammate Piastri again defend against Leclerc, thus helping him to score more points. But on this occasion, Norris said “no” and opposed first. As the pure coincidence would do, he then received a very rapid stop, and Piastri had the second flyy stand, a total inverse of Monza.

Norris had made the right call, but despite making him any race, he could not find a way to pass the Red Bull of Verstappen, even if Max was vocally unhappy with his equipment changes and other aspects of the behavior of his car.

“A big event with unpredictable results”

While the leaders negotiated large queues of lapotant traffic, the gaps reflected and sunk. Verstappen had opposed fresh tires to the Tour 19, but despite Russell while waiting for Tour 25, Norris Tour 26 and Piastri Tour 27, their cooler rubber did not really make a lot of difference in reference to Verstapun.

Mercedes’ teenager Kimi Antonelli, during her first visit to this track arrangement and with physical challenges in heat and humidity, did a very solid job in fifth place, including an excellent overtaking on Ferrari de Leclerc. This helped the team make more land in the narrow battle with Ferrari for second place in the manufacturers.

Fernando Alonso led the wheels of his Aston Martin all weekend and despite a nine-second hitchhiking, as well as a few fiery overruns, he finished in seventh place after Hamilton received a five-second penalty for constantly breaking the track limits in the final stages due to very few brakes.

Throughout the field, there was a fight in the race for minor points, finally secure in ninth by the always impressive Ollie Bearman for Haas, and Carlos Sainz for Williams with a beautiful effort of the rear row of the grid having been disqualified by qualifying for a rear wing marginally too flexible.

This track was changed in 2013 when we lost the difficult Singapore Sling Sling Chicane which caught many large pilots, and again in 2023 when we lost the section around a football field for the end of the knees, which is now the location of a serious repair of land. The two changes increased the speed of the track and won two critical areas where many incidents have occurred.

Nowadays, we barely see a yellow flag and even less a safety car, and it was again, as well as the first of the 16 GPS of Singapore not to have retreat. I often think that this Grand Prix would benefit from being a 260 km race like Monaco rather than the regular 305 km. But then many things can happen in these last laps as Unfortunately Lewis discovered it.

Overall, I thought it was a big event with unpredictable results. Russell summed up when he said that if he had been asked to assess his chances of winning a general practitioner this year, Singapore would have been the last of the 24 on the list. Let’s see what Austin, Texas can serve.

The F1 title race is now returning to North America, with the United States Grand Prix at Austin Up First from October 17 to 19 live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with now – no contract, cancel at any time