On a wet and humid night filled with safety cars and tortured intermediate tires, McLaren took advantage of a well-timed safety car to convert an otherwise forgettable race into a double points finish in Sunday’s (Oct. 2) Singapore Grand Prix.
Currently battling Alpine for fourth place in the Constructors Championship, the papaya team found a bittersweet, or perhaps sweetly bitter, qualifying result on Saturday. Entering the weekend 18 points behind Alpine in the Constructors race, Lando Norris managed a respectable sixth place grid slot while Daniel Ricciardo failed to advance from Q1 and lined up 17th when the lights went out.
A comparatively quiet race for the team, minus Norris having a fair scrap with Max Verstappen early on, began to blow open for McLaren when Alpine’s Fernando Alonso was struck with an engine failure on lap 21. Seven laps later, Esteban Ocon’s Alpine came grinding to a halt with smoke billowing from the engine cover. Two for two on engine failures for the French squad.
P4 and P5! 👏 We love a double papaya points Sunday! 🧡@LandoNorris @DanielRicciardo#SingaporeGP 🇸🇬 pic.twitter.com/rpDxIcaxeZ
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) October 2, 2022
As most of the field, Norris and Ricciardo included, aimed to stretch their intermediate tires as long as possible on a slowly drying track, Yuki Tsunoda’s AlphaTauri being planted firmly in the turn 10 barriers on lap 36 offered the McLaren duo the opportunity to pit under safety car conditions, elevating Norris and Ricciardo to fourth and sixth, respectively.
Moments after racing resumed an overambitious attempt by Verstappen to jump Norris into turn 7 sent the points leader locking up and screeching into the runoff area. Immediately on the scene to pick up an extra position was Ricciardo who slotted into fifth place for the rest of the race. The Australian’s previous best finish of 2022 was sixth in Australia.
Splitting their tire strategy, the team place Norris on mediums and Ricciardo on softs for the approximately 36 minute dash to the finish – weather conditions had delayed the race start by an hour, meaning race control had to institute a timer rather than lap counter to ensure the race stayed within its two hour window.
Norris maintained a healthy gap over Ricciardo to the end, though the young Briton was unable to properly challenge Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz for the final podium position. Behind his teammate, Ricciardo managed to maintain a firm gap over Aston…
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