This almost backfired for Lando Norris, but in the end he didn’t give Max Verstappen a chance at the Singapore Formula 1 Grand Prix.
Lando Norris delivered what was probably his most dominant performance of the 2024 Formula 1 season so far at the Singapore Grand Prix, securing victory in the famous “Night Race”. The McLaren driver won the race ahead of Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and Oscar Piastri in the second McLaren.
This time Norris kept his nerve at the start, was lucky once with a near-crash, but otherwise had no serious opponents all night and was able to control the pace from the front almost at will.
For a long time it looked as if Norris would also secure the bonus point for the fastest lap. But Daniel Ricciardo (Racing Bulls) did Red Bull one last favor in what was probably the last Grand Prix of his career, switching to fresh tires at the end and taking the point away from Norris. Norris’ deficit is now 52 points after 18 of 24 Grands Prix.
Fourth place went to George Russell (Mercedes), who had to defend himself against Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) in the finish. Leclerc drove a long first stint and had tires nine laps fresher, which meant that he was one of the fastest cars in the field in the final phase.
Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) dragged himself to the finish line on heavily worn tires – the only top driver who had risked a start on the softest rubber compound. He finished sixth, ahead of Carlos Sainz (Ferrari), Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), Nico Hülkenberg (Haas) and Sergio Perez (Red Bull).
Alexander Albon (Williams) retired with a suspected cooling defect in the power unit area. Kevin Magnussen (Haas) stopped in the pits shortly before the end. All the other 18 cars saw the chequered flag. And in a moderately exciting Singapore Grand Prix, there was not a single safety car phase for the first time ever.
Who were the winners of the launch?
For Hamilton, the plan to be the only top driver to start on soft tyres did not work out. Pole-sitter Norris was not in danger until the first corner and this time maintained his lead confidently. Hamilton did sit on the outside next to Verstappen in the first corner, but had to give way – and despite the grip advantage, was unable to attack in the first two laps.
After two laps he was already one and a half seconds behind Verstappen, and it wasn’t long before fourth-placed Russell radioed for the first time: “We have to pick up the pace, otherwise the guys up front will drive away from us.” But Hamilton was told not to attack, but to save his tires.
Behind them, however, there were a few changes. Franco Colapinto (Williams) gained three positions at the start and came back from the first lap in ninth place, Perez in tenth. These were the two big winners of the start. Sainz, on the other hand, dropped from P10 to P12. And Albon even dropped from P11 to P15. He got upset on the radio: “What did Franco do? That was a divebomb!”
How dominant was Norris?
The race was a slow affair for the first ten laps. Norris was able to shake off Verstappen by five seconds on the orders of his race engineer, and Hamilton was already ten seconds behind the leader after ten laps. So it looked like it would be a duel for victory at best, with McLaren having a pretty clear advantage.
Norris had already extended his lead to eight seconds when he received a radio message on lap 13: “Lando, it looks like overtaking is difficult as expected. Undercut looks strong. Might add two seconds.” And his pace remained impressive: at the end of lap 22, his lead over Verstappen was 27.5 seconds.
Did Hamilton’s strategy with the soft tires work?
On lap 17, Hamilton was the first of the leading group to come into the pits on his soft tires. He switched from soft to hard after 2.5 seconds of downtime – and fell back to 13th place, immediately behind the Magnussen-Haas. Red Bull radioed Verstappen: “Hamilton has stopped in midfield traffic. Just keep driving.”
Hamilton was not happy with his strategy. The first stint was “far too short,” he complained on the pit radio, and that would make him pay at the end of the race. He also complained that he felt there was too little downforce, possibly as a result of hitting the wall at the pit entrance. But his race engineer replied: “We can’t see anything in the data.”
In hindsight, Hamilton’s criticism was not entirely unfounded. In the last third of the race, he fought with blunt weapons against Piastri and Leclerc and had to let them overtake him more or less without a fight. He could not get any higher than 6th place.
Did Norris find himself in danger again?
After his tire change, Norris was more than 20 seconds ahead of Verstappen, who in turn had briefly fallen behind Leclerc (long first stint) due to his pit stop and had to overtake the Ferrari on the track.
On lap 29, Norris almost ruined his race when he narrowly avoided a crash in a 90-degree right-hand bend. He braked a little too late and got away with just a slight kiss on the wall.
“Maybe I have damage to the front wing,” he radioed, but the pit gave the all-clear: “Stay out!” And when asked how the car felt, Norris said: “Good.”
On lap 38, very late, McLaren also brought in the second car, Piastri, to stop. Piastri returned to the track in fifth place behind the Mercedes duo, but had tires that were 21 laps fresher than Hamilton and only had a gap of 1.4 seconds to make up.
Piastri dealt with the Hamilton issue just two laps later with a confident overtaking maneuver, and on lap 45 he had also overtaken Russell and was thus on course for the podium.
Meanwhile, Norris at the front continued to circle alone through the night. He was asked to save his right front tire at the start of turn 18, but apart from that there were no problems. Not even in terms of speed: he was able to extend his lead over Verstappen to 23 seconds by lap 40.
With a good 15 laps to go, Norris drove so far to the outside when braking that his right rear wheel brushed the wall – a scene that was strikingly reminiscent of Russell’s crash a year ago, but which had no consequences for Norris. “Full concentration. Have a drink,” his race engineer warned him.
The McLaren driver was not impressed by this and even set the fastest lap of the race on lap 48 of 62: 1:34.925 minutes. This means an additional point in the drivers’ championship, in which he takes 26 points from Singapore and Verstappen 18.
How did Hülkenberg fall behind Alonso and Leclerc?
Nico Hülkenberg got off to a great start from sixth place, benefited from a small mistake by Piastri in turn 1 and even briefly took over fifth place from the McLaren driver. However, Hülkenberg knew that he would not be able to hold on to P5 for long, so he made little effort to defend against Piastri.
He then drove a strong race with Alonso and Leclerc in tow, without giving in under the pressure. Alonso came into the pits relatively early, and Hülkenberg now had Leclerc as his direct opponent, who he had to let pass on lap 28. A little later he switched from medium to hard – and fell behind the Aston Martin due to Alonso’s undercut.
At the end of lap 36, Leclerc came into the pits after a long first stint, and he too returned to the track just ahead of Hülkenberg. Adjusted for pit stops, the German is now in 9th place, 1.4 seconds ahead of Perez, with tires of a similar age and the same hardness.
There were still 15 laps to go and Perez was getting bigger and bigger in the rear-view mirror as the race engineer tried to encourage Hülkenberg: “The tires look very good, Nico, very good.” In contrast, Perez radioed: “I have no traction. The car is bouncing like a kangaroo.”
Hülkenberg withstood the pressure and secured two points for the World Championship.
Source: www.sport.de
