Lando Norris was all smiles after claiming a dominant victory at the 2024 Singapore GP, calling it one of the McLaren‘s “most dominant weekends”.
The Brit was in control, even making a strong launch off the line to hold his lead heading into Turn 1. From there Norris was never under threat, eventually crossing the line by more than 20s ahead of Max Verstappen at Marina Bay.
Norris reflected on the win by taking a slight dig at McLaren’s rivals after being forced to change their rear wing design by the FIA, before stating performances like the one in Singapore could have come sooner were it not for mistakes or poor execution.
“We’ve not changed anything on the car from here to last weekend or the weekend before,” Norris told accredited members of the press, including Total-Motorsport.com..
“We’ve even had to make tweaks to some of our wings and things that people have complained about, but we still had a great weekend, and probably one of our most dominant weekends here.
“I don’t think that’s made made the difference. Honestly, it was just the car’s been mega for a good amount of time. I’ve not been able to come out on top for quite a few of them, when I feel like I had the pace and I had the ability to do so, some of that down to being my own fault and not executing things well enough.
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Catch up with Total Motorsport's latest Singapore GP coverage, including Max Verstappen's victory at Marina Bay, Ferrari's costly strategy gamble, the full race classification, and the updated 2026 Formula 1 Drivers' and Constructors' Championship standings.
“So I’ve paid the price for not doing a good enough job at times. But when I lead after turn one, and things are a bit more straightforward then, then we can have days like today.”
Norris flirted with disaster
Despite Norris’ dominant performance there were a few hair-raising moments, all self-inflicted.
The McLaren driver brushed the walls of the Marina Bay Street Circuit more than once, with with one of the incidents prompting his race engineer to remind him to apply “full concentration.”
Norris admitted after the race that he was perhaps pushing a bit too hard at times, but revealed that was in part due to the car being a bit more difficult to handle on the hard tyres.
“I was flat out. I was pushing a bit too hard. It was definitely not like I was cruising,” said Norris.
“I was pushing to open up a gap, and at one point I wanted to try and open up a pit window to give myself an opportunity to maybe box at the end of the race for quickest lap if I needed to try and achieve that.
“Daniel stole that away from me at the end of the race, but it wasn’t easy. The car was not easy to drive, especially on the hard tyres. I struggled a lot more than what I did on the medium, and especially just with the traffic and things, it was a bit harder to manage the second half of the stint compared to the first.
“I was definitely pushing, probably too much, hence the mistakes I was making, or the two mistakes, I made with the wall. But otherwise, things were going well.”
