There were some recognizable elements of the Singapore Grand Prix this year: a night race with hot weather, heavy humidity, a dew point no doubt off the charts. Correspondingly, there was tired, occasionally frustrated driving on a street circuit not built for overtakes, though this year they tried to rectify this issue by increasing the total number of DRS zones to four. Four! The saving grace for Singapore has also been its most defining characteristic: its propensity for safety cars. But this year, with some luck and a lot of engine reliability, there was nothing.
This year's race was won or lost in discrete moments. Ferrari lost it after a horrific qualifying; you can't recover from P9 and P10 on the grid on a track like Singapore. Lewis Hamilton lost it after a call to put him on old soft tires to start the race; he failed to grab the all-important track position on the opening lap, and didn't have the tires to last him to the end. And Lando Norris won it by finally converting pole position to a lap-one lead for the first time so far this season, putting to bed—or, at least, a nap—one of the most persistent criticisms levied at his driving this year.
Most drivers on the grid were playing a game of managing tire degradation toward the end of the race. Norris came out flying. The commentators noted that his pit wall didn't seem terribly happy about the timing screens, and his race engineer came on the radio with a compromise: If Norris thought he had the pace in the clean air, then they would like at least five seconds between him and Max Verstappen in P2. In retrospect, it was a laughably small request. While Charles Leclerc was trapped behind a Nico Hulkenberg–Fernando Alonso DRS train in the low points positions, and teammate Oscar Piastri was slowly but steadily making his way toward both Mercedes separating him from a podium spot, Norris had pulled 10 seconds clear of Verstappen by lap 16. At that point, Verstappen was no longer impeded by the dirty air from behind Norris. So naturally, by lap 29, Norris was as much as 26 seconds clear. Four more, and he would have a comfortable pit stop window.
Leading Singapore by such a margin turns the race into a war of attrition with the self. It's easy to lose focus, and on slippery old tires, one mistake can be devastating. On that same lap 29, Norris locked up and just barely clipped the wall with his front wing. "Uh, front wing damage, maybe," Norris said over the radio. But the benefit of a 26 second lead is that a driver can lose four seconds to a lock up and near collision, wait for the car behind to pit first, and still have enough time left to change the front wing twice over in the pit stop, if needed. (It was not. McLaren said there was damage, but minor, and Norris certainly didn't seem to lose that much pace in the second portion of the race.) Even when he had another moment post–pit stop—clipping the wall with his rear tire on lap 45—Norris followed it up with immediately putting in the fastest lap of the race so far. A few more millimeters could have ruined his race. As it were, it was simply a wake-up call.
For all of McLaren's great performance in the latter part of the season, they hadn't yet showed that they could earn their comfortable, highly favored victories. While they were doing very well in the Constructors Championship race thanks to the combined efforts of Oscar Piastri and Sergio Pérez, the progress on the drivers' side of things was far more labored. Poor strategy calls, dodgy Norris performances—there has rarely been a simple McLaren win this season, and so, as ridiculous as it is to say about a car that Norris is driving like the 2023 Red Bull, they needed this one.
Norris came within a lap of getting his first Formula 1 grand slam—pole position, win, fastest lap of the race—but was barred on the last step by his former teammate, Daniel Ricciardo. Since their somewhat touchy partnership at McLaren ended, they have gone on very different career trajectories. In Singapore, Norris was cruising to his third race win of the season, and Ricciardo was pitting from last place on the grid in order to steal the fastest lap away from him. It was an obvious decision made to help Ricciardo's good friend Verstappen in the championship race, enabled by VCARB's position as Red Bull's sister team. But whatever conniptions Zak Brown is having (and fairly so!), the team has some plausible deniability: This may, or may not, have been Ricciardo's final race in F1.
Ricciardo had an emotional post-race interview that seemed to all but confirm his exit, but there's yet to be an official announcement. And so, in true F1 fashion, we are left in an awkward state of limbo to close the race, a final complication into what could've been a very straightforward Norris sweep or a straightforward Ricciardo farewell. Ricciardo stole a final fastest lap, received the Driver of the Day Award, and earned no points for any of it. Meanwhile, in parc fermé, Lando Norris was being crowned by fireworks.
