By Nick Mulvenney
SINGAPORE (Reuters) -George Russell drove a flawless race from pole position to win the Singapore Grand Prix for Mercedes on Sunday, leaving Red Bull’s world champion Max Verstappen and the two McLarens to fight it out for the other podium spots.
Briton Russell took the chequered flag under the lights of the Marina Bay street circuit 5.4 seconds clear of Verstappen to claim his second victory of the season.
“It feels amazing,” said Russell. “We don’t really know where this performance came from, but really, really happy.
“I was really nervous at the beginning when I saw Max on the soft (tyres), but that first stint was great from us.”
Lando Norris put pressure on Verstappen towards the end of the race but had to settle for third ahead of teammate Oscar Piastri, the pair earning enough points to seal a second consecutive constructors’ title for McLaren.
“It was a tough race,” said Norris. “Max didn’t make any mistakes. I gave it my all today, and got close.
“I’m happy with today. I got forward two positions. We won as a team, the constructors’ once again.”
Piastri’s lead over Briton Norris in the drivers’ standings was cut to 22 points, while Verstappen is 63 points behind the Australian with six races remaining in the season.
“I think second was the maximum result today,” said Verstappen.
“I think the whole race was quite difficult, more difficult than I hope for, for a lot of different reasons.”
The celebrations for the constructors’ title in the McLaren garage might be muted, however, with Piastri fuming at the way Norris forced his way past his teammate on the opening corner.
Kimi Antonelli was a distant fifth in the other Mercedes with Charles Leclerc finishing sixth ahead of his Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton was later docked a five-second penalty for repeatedly leaving the track as he struggled with a braking issue, dropping him to eighth with Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso moving up to seventh.
Haas driver Oliver Bearman was ninth and Carlos Sainz, who started at the back of the grid after the Williams cars were disqualified from qualifying, took the final points in 10th.
“IT’S RACING”
Russell got away to a clean start from pole with Verstappen behind him but Norris, who started fifth, clipped the back of the Dutchman’s Red Bull as he forced his way up the inside of Piastri on the first corner.
Norris sustained some damage to the front end of his car and Piastri expressed his discontent on the team radio at his teammate’s manoeuvre, accusing the Briton of “barging him out of the way”.
“It’s racing, I put it on the inside, I had a small correction, but nothing more than that, it was good racing,” Norris said.
The stewards gave the incident the all-clear and McLaren said they would look at it after the race with Piastri again railing at what he said was the unfairness of the decision.
“I thought that in the moment, obviously first lap, tensions are high,” said Piastri. “We’re obviously encouraged to share our views on what happened, and I did that, and I’m sure we’ll discuss it more.”
Verstappen was the first of the leaders to pit and tore around the track to ensure Norris would not be able to undercut him when the Briton changed his tyres seven laps later.
Norris asserted his right as McLaren’s lead driver to pit ahead of Piastri, whose discontent with the team would not have been improved by a notably slower stop than his teammate.
Verstappen was 3.5 seconds behind Russell at the halfway stage and ended the race clinging on to keep second place from Norris rather than chasing a third straight race win.
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney and Rae Wee, Editing by Christian Radnedge and Toby Davis)
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