Lando Norris survived two scares with the wall to dominate the Singapore Grand Prix, beating Max Verstappen by 20.9 seconds to close the championship lead to 52 points.
The Briton brushed the wall twice during a crushing victory, first knocking his front wing at Turn 14 after a lock-up ahead of his sole pitstop, but escaped without needed to change it during the switch to hard tyres.
During his hard-tyre stint, Norris later knocked the wall with his rear right at Turn 10, at the same point that he and George Russell knocked it in the closing laps of last year’s race.
Neither incident appeared to cause much of an issue, although the former had cut a 25-second lead over Max Verstappen to 21 seconds in the overlap between stops.
Norris had been able to keep the lead into the first corner over Verstappen, and quickly built a one-second lead to ensure the Dutchman could not mount an attack with DRS in the opening laps.
Instructed to build a lead of five seconds “in the mid-teens” on the lap count, Norris completed that request early to gather that margin by lap 11, and then started to put more than a second per lap over his championship rival.
After his minor skirmishes with the wall, Norris settled in during the latter phases and his lead tickled the 30-second mark before being told to “bring the car home”.
After turning the pace down and dealing with traffic, Norris crossed the line to clinch his third win of the year – although his fastest lap effort was denied at the end by Daniel Ricciardo’s tour on soft tyres.
Verstappen crossed the line 20.9 seconds behind, while Oscar Piastri ensured both McLarens made it onto the podium with third.
Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15, George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15, the rest of the field at the start
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
Piastri had gone long on his medium tyres having been stuck behind the Mercedes duo in the early stages, accruing enough of a tyre advantage to dispatch Lewis Hamilton and Russell successively.
Although the aim was to catch Verstappen at the end, the Red Bull driver’s pace was too great to overcome for a McLaren 1-2.
Russell finished fourth after batting away a rapidly catching Charles Leclerc at the end, having become the lead Mercedes with an overcut over the soft-starting Hamilton.
Leclerc had also gone long on his tyres and, although was undercut by the out-of-position Carlos…
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