F1 | Norris dominates with a thrill: “Too relaxed, I took a big risk”

Lando Norris literally dominated the Singapore Grand Prix. After a great qualifying yesterday, the McLaren driver annihilated all his main rivals and triumphed with a margin of over 20 seconds over Max Verstappen, second and his rival for the World Championship.

In fact, had Lando not slowed down dramatically, he would have finished the race more than half a minute ahead of what had been the dominant car in the first half of the season, Verstappen’s number 1 RB20.

This time starting in the best possible way from pole, Norris immediately opened a gap to the Dutchman that was very important in the first laps thanks to an unmatched race pace. His margin was so important right from the start that it seemed like an easy win would come, the easiest of his career.

Instead, a braking error when he was already more than 20 seconds ahead of Verstappen caused him to damage the vertical bulkhead of the front wing. A thrill that was repeated halfway through the race, when he touched the wall with the right set of tyres at turn 14. However, nothing managed to put a dominant victory in doubt.

“It was a fantastic race,” Norris said after the race, feeling the heat and humidity. “Maybe I took a few too many risks in the middle of the race, I had a couple of moments where I was really close to it, but in the end I was pretty good at managing them.”

“The car was great, we were flying the whole race and at the end I could relax. It was a very tough race physically, I’m really tired, but everything went well.”

Norris then explained what led him to make two mistakes that, without a prompt recovery, could have cost him a victory that seemed certain from the first laps.

“It’s not that I was pushing beyond the limit, it’s that sometimes you relax too much. I don’t know exactly what happened. But the important thing is that I didn’t have too much damage. The important thing is that I won, I managed to get a good amount of points and I’m also happy for Oscar (Piastri) who managed to get on the podium. A good day for the team too.”

“I would say it was a similar race to Qatar last year in terms of physical toughness. I could have been more relaxed maybe and now I’m a bit dizzy, but everything went well.”

Norris now has a 52-point deficit to Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship with 6 races to go. Lando was outwitted by Daniel Ricciardo with just a few laps to go, who set the fastest lap on a set of Softs and stole the extra point that would have been very useful to Lando…