Lando Norris took a commanding victory in Singapore, finishing more than twenty seconds clear of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
McLaren has now solidified its position as the team to beat, with the previous round in Azerbaijan also being won by one of their own, as Oscar Piastri snatched the lead from pole-sitter Charles Leclerc mid-race to claim his second F1 career win.
Their strong form continued in Singapore. Asked how they were able to deliver such a dominant performance without “doing anything to the car” between rounds, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella explained that the track characteristics favoured the MCL38.
“If I look at previous races, at this high level of downforce, we seem to be very competitive,” Stella told the media after the race. “So I think it might have more to do with the level of downforce than with the fact that we may be chipping away at getting more and more out of the car.
“I think the car has been strong in this configuration. I always make the examples of Hungary, Zandvoort. Even Hungary was a relatively dominant victory in itself—like Zandvoort, like this one.”
Stella continued: “I think at the moment it’s more that the car in this configuration has the better aerodynamic efficiency across the grid. While at low drag, I think the efficiency of Ferrari and Red Bull is much more comparable to our car.
“We know, certainly, that we have invested much more at this level of downforce than what we have done at lower downforce. Even though, I’ve said already, after races like Spa and Monza, we have definitely made a step forward in terms of retaining downforce when we reduce the level of drag.”
Verstappen was able to deliver a very strong performance despite Red Bull’s slump, qualifying 2nd and managing to hold onto that position in Sunday’s race. Ferrari’s performance, meanwhile, was dampened by their qualifying troubles, which put them on the back foot for the race. Although Leclerc showed great pace, the podium proved to be out of reach. Stella believes Ferrari’s struggles flattered McLaren’s perceived advantage in Singapore.
“Red Bull, we see that in a track in which they thought they would have not been very competitive, ultimately they were potentially second best,” he said. “I think we haven’t seen Ferrari today very well.
“But even Ferrari, in FP1, FP2, they seemed to be as fast as us. And the final stint of Leclerc is very competitive. I think the race may give us a little bit of maybe flattering.”
“The situation from a competitiveness point of view, I would say we need to keep being aggressive in terms of development.”
Norris was poised to earn an additional point for setting the fastest lap but was ultimately denied by Daniel Ricciardo, who switched to softs during a late-race stop and clocked the fastest time, though was ineligible to claim the extra point himself, having finished outside the top 10.
Stella doesn’t feel the team missed an opportunity to maximise Norris’s points haul, saying the priority was to keep it clean until the flag, rather than stopping Norris again for a fastest lap gamble.
“No, in fairness, in the second part of the second stint, our attention was drawn on the fact that as soon as you got behind the backmarkers, the car started to feel tricky,” he said.
“So it was all about no issues, no mistakes, no lock-up. We had seen already in practice that as soon as you are behind a slow car, things look like there’s something wrong with the car. It’s just the effect of the dirty air.
“The focus was entirely on bringing the car home. We suggested to Lando to have an attempt at the fastest lap, which he achieved. But after that, we didn’t want to talk about fastest lap anymore.”
Verstappen’s perfect damage limitation drive meant that McLaren failed to take as many points off their main rival as perhaps they would have liked.
“From a numerical point of view, it’s a little frustrating, because I think we could have gone away from Singapore having gained more points on Max,” Stella acknowledged.
“I think Ferrari could have finished ahead of Max. I think even Oscar, polishing a little bit the qualifying laps, he could have finished ahead of Max.”
However, he remains confident that McLaren will continue to demonstrate strong form in the upcoming rounds, viewing the remaining three sprint events as a prime opportunity to reduce Norris’s point deficit to Verstappen.
“But the positives that come from the pace of the car definitely overcome this kind of frustration. I think when you have this sort of pace, we are heading on to the next six events, three of which are sprint events.
“So I think we have… it’s definitely not in our hands, because it’s still in Max’s hands. Likewise the Constructors’, that’s more in our hands, in fairness. But I think we go away potentially encouraged and even more optimistic that the Drivers’ Championship is possible because of the performance of the car.”
