Back-to-back champions: McLaren take home their Championship title as George Russell wins the Singapore Grand Prix.

The Marina Bay Street Circuit is known for its thrilling starts, where the audience holds its breath to see if which drivers will make it past Turn 1. Pole sitter George Russell took off straight away leaving Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri on his tail. McLaren’s other driver, Lando Norris had to settle on a fifth place after qualifying. When the lights went out, the Brit had a good start, immediately shooting  forward, taking the inside line and going wheel-to-wheel with teammate Oscar Piastri. This forward move caused Norris to make contact with Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, while also nudging teammate Oscar Piastri to the side.

It took only one lap for tensions within the McLaren team to flare up as Piastri made his frustration clear over the radio, stating that he was not happy with his teammate’s actions. While George Russell continued his lead, Norris after this incident moved up into third place, leaving Piastri in  fourth. Norris stated after the race “Anyone on the grid would have done exactly the same thing as what I did”. Teammate Oscar Piastri didn’t have much to say after the race and simply stated ‘I need to go and look at it. Obviously there was contact, which is never ideal, but I’ll go and have a look at the replays’.

These are the kind of tensions the McLaren team would have preferred to avoid especially given that in Singapore they once again managed to secure the Championship title, with still six races to go. The team’s seven 1-2 finishes across the 18 grand prix weekends we already had, underlines once again how dominant McLaren and their MCL39 have been throughout the entire season, never really feeling threatened by any of the other teams.

Polesitter George Russell spent the entire race comfortably in the lead, his position never really under threat. This might be the push Russell needs to finalize the ongoing negotiations with Mercedes over his new contract. Meanwhile, Max Verstappen had a frustrating race with Lando Norris within the DRS zone multiple times. Despite his efforts the Briton never managed to get ahead of the current world champion and had to settle for a third place.

Even with the team tensions going on at McLaren we can always count on Fernando Alonso for comic relief. When his team kept talking over the radio, the Aston Martin driver simply stated that “if you speak to me every lap. I will disconnect the radio”. Alonso managed to finish on a seventh place, scoring even more points after a post-race penalty for Lewis Hamilton.

The question rises; where was Ferrari in Singapore? It al seemed to go well for Charles Leclerc when he overtook Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes early on in the race. Eventually, Antonelli would retake his position leaving Leclerc’s Ferrari 12 seconds behind him. All hands on deck within the Scuderia team: they tried to switch positions with Hamilton. But shortly afterward Hamilton reported a brake issue. Just when Hamilton, who finished the race in seventh place, thought his weekend was a lost cause: news broke that he had been giving a post-race five second penalty as punishment for “leaving the track without justifiable reason multiple times”. Hamilton ended in  8^th place, while Leclerc finished 6^th outing his disappointment by stating: “We are struggling massively with the car”

With one championship now settled, the questions remains: who will lift the drivers championship trophy? See you on track on 17^th October in the USA for the final quarter of this championship battle.