“It is an incredible emotion and I want to share it with the team for their incredible work,” team principal Andrea Stella added
Mercedes’s George Russell with the Singapore Grand Prix winner’s trophy on Sunday. Pic/AFP
Mercedes’s George Russell eased to a comfortable win under the floodlights in Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix even as McLaren clinched their second successive constructors’ title. The Briton, who had started from pole, crossed the line 5.4 seconds clear of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who just about held on to second by a slim margin of 0.636 seconds over McLaren’s Lando Norris in third. Championship leader Oscar Piastri was fourth.
The result means McLaren, winners of 12 races this year, leave Singapore with a total haul of 27 points, more than the minimum 13 they needed, to secure the title with six races to spare. Piastri (336 pts) continues to lead the drivers standings, but by a smaller 22-point margin over Norris. “Pretty awesome,” McLaren chief executive Zak Brown declared of McLaren’s title win. “It is an incredible emotion and I want to share it with the team for their incredible work,” team principal Andrea Stella added.
The back-to-back title triumph was McLaren’s first consecutive championship success since Mika Hakkinen won two drivers’s titles in a row in 1998 and 1999. It was their first successive constructors’s title win, however, since their streak of success spanning 1988 to 1991.
But their celebrations will be tinged with tension after Norris and Piastri went wheel-to-wheel at the start. The pair found themselves side-by-side exiting the opening sequence of corners with Norris muscling past Piastri after clipping the back of Verstappen’s Red Bull and sliding wide. “So are we cool with Lando just barging me out of the way?” Piastri, hoping McLaren would swap positions, complained over the team radio.
When McLaren told him they would maintain the status quo as Norris had been forced to avoid Verstappen, Piastri responded, “If he has to avoid another car by crashing into his teammate then that’s a pretty shit job of avoiding.” “It was wet in lots of places,” Norris said. “It is racing, I put it on the inside, had a little correction and yeah, that’s it.”
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