Mark Hughes: How McLaren could have won in Singapore — if its drivers weren't fighting

F1
Mark Hughes
October 8, 2025

When Lando Norris pitted to avoid being overtaken by Oscar Piastri at the Singapore Grand Prix, he closed off the strategy that could have won him the F1 race; one that was proven by Lewis Hamilton back in 2014

Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris clash in the 2025 F1 Singapore Grand Prix while inset Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel shake hands after the 2014 race

Piastri and Norris clash at the start of the 2025 Singapore GP. Inset, Hamilton and Vettel shake hands after the 2014 race

McLaren/Grand Prix Photo

Mark Hughes
October 8, 2025

Even the raising of the Singapore pitlane speed limit, cutting the pitstop loss from 28sec to 21sec was not enough to deviate the teams away from a one-stop last weekend. Which was why everyone up front was locked into position: George Russell leading from Max Verstappen and the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Needing a lap time advantage of 1.5sec to overtake on track and with everyone on the same one-stop strategy meant everyone’s tyres were always about the same age and the performance differences between cars which had qualified next to each other was therefore never going to be anything like that 1.5sec.

Except there was a small possibility of McLaren being able to do exactly that: by the magic of the tyre offset. If they could just use their superior control of rear tyre temperatures to run way longer in the first stint — and thereby have much newer tyres than Verstappen or Russell in the second stint — that 1.5sec per lap advantage might, just, have been feasible and they may have been able to actually overtake their way to the front. But we never got to find out, as that possibility was squandered by the internal title struggle between Norris and Piastri.

Norris — as the lead team driver and therefore with first call on pitstop sequence — did not want Piastri to be pitted before him, as it created an undercut threat. Therefore in order to get Piastri in early enough to fend off a possible threat to Piastri from Leclerc, Norris had to be brought in even earlier. Which meant he rejoined with a relatively small (seven-lap) tyre age advantage over Verstappen (and just one lap over Russell). But if they’d both stayed out maybe an extra 10 laps (which the McLaren looked like being able to do), they’d have had something much more like the required 1.5sec advantage to overtake. It would only be a question of how much pace they’d surrendered in doing those extra laps at the end of the first stint.

Creating a tyre offset of 1.5sec within the same one-stop strategy as everyone else would have been a big challenge. But the McLaren’s rear tyre thermal deg advantage is big enough to have made it a possibility.

That delicate pivot between 1) how far you are behind as you rejoin on your faster rubber and 2) how much faster you are, determines the success or failure of an offset tyre strategy. Because the newer tyre’s pace advantage over the old one is not linear: it reduces each lap. So it needs to be 1.5sec faster (at this track) by the time to catch your opponent. Which might mean not using all of its pace advantage in the early laps, despite the temptation to do so because of how much ground you need to recover. It’s where the pitwall has to curb the driver’s instincts.

Lando Norris leaves the pits at the 2025 F1 Singapore Grand Prix

Norris pitted to avoid being passed by Piastri, but could it have cost McLaren victory?

McLaren

Singapore Grand Prix history shows us two examples of great tyre offset battles. One in which the bid succeeded and one in which it didn’t quite. But both created tense, exciting contests.

In 2014 a mid-race safety car before long-time dominant leader Lewis Hamilton had made his second stop (but after Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull had) framed a thrilling late contest. Hamilton had stopped once already in this two-stop race but had fitted the same compound of tyre as used in his opening stint. The regulation requirement to use at least two compounds left him needing him to stop again but with the safety car pack queued up tight behind him late in the race. Because of where he’d been on track (ie with most of the lap still to do) when the safety car came out, he’d been unable to respond by pitting immediately. To stop with the pack bunched tight would have meant a disastrous loss of position.

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But the saving grace was that Vettel was not on new rubber either; he’d simply used the previous stop to switch compounds. Therefore what Hamilton had to do as the safety car came in was try to pull out the 28sec gap over Vettel required to stay ahead after making the extra stop. His Mercedes was a much faster car than Vettel’s Red Bull and the age of their tyres was not so different. But still – he had only 23 laps left in which to pull out that gap, pit and rejoin.

Vettel, knowing he had to get the tyres to the end, settled into a 1min 54sec groove. Hamilton’s first flying lap was 1min 51.4sec. Like that, the gap quickly built. But quickly enough? Thirteen laps of this and Hamilton had the gap out to 24sec, and there were still 10 laps to go. But now the Merc’s rubber was screaming and his pace advantage was falling away. That extra 4sec he needed just wasn’t coming. Can you just push a bit more, he was asked. No, came the reply. The tyres are finished.

But all was not lost for Hamilton of course. Because there was still the offset to consider. He wasn’t going to be able to exit his stop in front of the Red Bull, but at least he’d be coming out on tyres far newer. He’d just have to do it that way. He pitted with nine laps still to go, rejoined a few lengths behind – and then simply devoured the gap, screaming by on Vettel’s right through the Turn 6 kink a lap later to retake the lead.

Sebastian Vettel leads lewis Hamilton in the 2014 F1 Singapore Grand Prix

Vettel couldn’t defend against the fresh-tyred Hamilton in the closing stages of 2014 race

Sutton Images

Two years later came another late race thriller created by the tyre offset. Nico Rosberg had blasted off from pole. The Mercedes was still the fastest car in 2016 but Red Bull had closed some of the gap in those two year – to the extent that Daniel Ricciardo had been able to split the Mercs and qualify on the front row. His early second place in the race was a distant one but Red Bull, fancying its pace was better relative to the Merc towards the end of the stints, worked backward from the final stint – and brought Ricciardo in early for the first stop, forcing Rosberg to cover him off a lap later. Red Bull wanted to force Mercedes to maximise the length of Rosberg’s final stint in this two-stop race.

Ricciardo had been able to do this early first stop because behind him the other Mercedes of Hamilton was stuck behind the slower Ferrari of Kimi Räikkönen. Ricciardo was fitted with another set of mediums. Mercedes was confident enough to switch Rosberg from his opening stint softs to what were effectively hards (the naming of the compounds was confusing then and even more in hindsight so let’s not get distracted by ultra/super/soft).

The faster second stint tyre allowed Ricciardo to close the gap down to less than 4sec (it had been over 6sec). But it began to lose pace thereafter and both Rosberg and Ricciardo were brought in on lap 32 for hards for what was set to be the final stint.

Except it wasn’t – not for Ricciardo anyway. Mercedes triggered a cascade of third stops by bringing Hamilton in to try to pass Raikkonen. Ferrari responded by bringing Raikkonen in – and so much faster were the new tyres that Ricciardo’s second place was under threat from the Ferrari. So Red Bull brought in Ricciardo before it was too late. Ricciardo did an outrageously fast out-lap and this in combination with encountering backmarkers made it impossible for Rosberg to respond with his own third stop. Had he pitted, Ricciardo would have taken the lead. So he stayed out on his old tyres with Ricciardo catching. The Red Bull rejoined 25sec behind but was lapping up to 3sec faster.

Daniel Ricciardo surrounded by Red Bull crew in the pits during the 2016 F1 Singapore Grand Prix

An extra stop for Ricciardo set the scene for a thrilling chase at the end of the 2016 Singapore GP

Red Bull

With four laps to go this gap was down to 4sec as Rosberg and Ricciardo came to lap backmarkers. The cooling effect on Ricciardo’s hard-pushed tyres as he went off line to get by the lapped cars neutered his advantage – and Rosberg was off the hook.

Those thrillers were brought about by the huge difference in performance between tyres resulting from one car making an extra stop over the other. What McLaren came invisibly close to doing last Sunday was to achieve that within the same stop strategy. Would it have worked? We’ll never know.

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