Mercedes’s George Russell ruled the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday to claim his second title this season and sixth podium overall. His resounding victory, however, seems to have been overshadowed by McLaren winning its second straight F1 Constructors’ Championship with six races to go in the season and the internal drama between the team’s two top drivers—Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.
Incidentally, Piastri and Norris helped McLaren clinch the championship on Sunday by both finishing in the top four, with Norris securing third place and Piastri right behind at fourth. The two McLaren drivers are also leading the F1 Drivers’ Championship race, with the Australian at no. 1 currently with 336 points and the Briton at no. 2 with 314.
“Pretty awesome,” said McLaren CEO Zak Brown after the Singapore Grand Prix. “Unbelievable team here, unbelievable team back at the factory. All the men and women have done such an awesome job. The leadership Andrea [Stella] has provided to the race team, the whole leadership team, our owners, our shareholders—it’s such a team effort and it’s pretty awesome to go back-to-back—it’s been a while since we’ve done it.”
Drama Unfolds at McLaren
The biggest news out of Singapore, though, is neither Russell’s masterful win that saw him fend off the red-hot Max Verstappen nor McLaren’s resounding title clincher. Instead, the biggest news on Sunday was the in-race collision between Piastri and Norris in Turn 3, where Norris’s car partially clipped the rear of Verstappen’s Red Bull before hitting Piastri’s.
Neither man’s car sustained considerable damage, but the collision may have added even more drama to an already tension-filled dynamic between the two drivers.
Piastri, in particular, appears to have taken some umbrage with Norris’s actions, describing it as not very team-like in a message over the team radio. When the McLaren brass told the Australian driver they wouldn’t be taking action against Norris, the former responded, “That’s not fair. Sorry, that’s not fair.”
It should be noted that at the time of those terse radio exchanges, Piastri hadn’t yet seen what had transpired before Norris bumped into his car. Afterwards, the presumptive F1 World Champion said he’d “look more closely at the replays” before coming to a conclusion about the incident.
The Road Ahead for McLaren
With McLaren already securing the F1 Constructors’ Championship, the road ahead will be all about making sure either Piastri or Norris wins the World Championship to give the team a resounding double victory this season—their first since 1989.
At the moment, the team is trending towards a double, but the events at the Singapore Grand Prix could add an unexpected wrinkle to that title chase, and it is something McLaren will need to resolve. It’s a good thing, then, that Piastri has a sizable lead over the hard-charging Verstappen, who still has an outside chance at winning it all again.
