Piastri was right to be angry - 2025 Singapore GP takeaways

The Singapore Grand Prix didn’t offer the most exciting of races, but it exposed tension at McLaren and resurgent form from Mercedes.

McLaren’s night was defined by intra-team friction, as Oscar Piastri was right to feel aggrieved after being muscled aside by Lando Norris.

McLaren may be counting its blessings that the season isn’t any longer, with Max Verstappen‘s Red Bull now looking like a genuine threat again.

Russell, meanwhile, finally found redemption under the lights.

Here’s a look at the main topics from the Singapore GP.

Piastri is right to feel hard done by…

Whether F1 drivers have become too accustomed to complaining about any kind of robust racing or not, Piastri was right to feel hard done by in Singapore – at least within McLaren’s idealistic universe.

“I mean, that wasn’t very team-like, but sure,” complained Piastri on the radio on lap 1 after what he felt had Norris ‘barged’ him out of the way at Turn 3.

Under any other circumstances, Norris’s move would have been seen as a racing incident: he was aggressive in an attempt to get to Turn 3 ahead of his team-mate, but ended up hitting Verstappen’s car and bouncing against Piastri’s.

It was clumsy, not malicious. A chain reaction rather than an attack, at the start of the race on a narrow set of corners.

But Norris hit Piastri, breaking McLaren’s No1 rule in the team’s book of how it goes about racing and how it tries to be fair to its drivers beyond what many consider realistic or sustainable.

As predicted, the Italian Grand Prix scenario, where Piastri was ordered to let Norris past after the British driver lost position with a slow pitstop, will come back to haunt McLaren it in some situations, and this was one of those.

If McLaren felt it has to intervene to make things more fair for Norris at Monza, you couldn’t blame Piastri for asking why the team didn’t do anything when Norris broke the cardinal rule of not hitting his team-mate.

Granted, it would have been an incredibly awkward situation to ask Norris to give up the position to Piastri after the stewards decided no investigation was necessary, but such is the predicament McLaren has put itself in by artificially altering results.

To be clear, McLaren doesn’t need to answer to anyone from outside its own team, be it fans, media or rivals, so the perception the world has about its protocols is very much irrelevant.

But from Piastri’s perspective, things might start to look one-sided.

After questioning the team’s Monza call and reminding them that pitstop errors are part of racing, his tone in Singapore hinted at a growing frustration that McLaren’s sense of fairness might not run both ways.

… but Norris did what he had to do

Both last year and during parts of this season, Norris has been accused of not being ruthless enough to be championship material. His Singapore GP move was exactly the kind of thing he has to do in order to close the gap on Piastri if he wants to beat the Australian to the title.

The pass was far from the cleanest, and it risked a penalty given how random the stewards’ decisions have been in recent races when it comes to what were previously obvious racing incidents.

But, despite the feathers he may have ruffled, Norris’s aggression was precisely the kind of statement he needed to make at this stage of the season, at least in the context of the title fight.

Norris has carried the reputation of being nice – perhaps too nice – in wheel-to-wheel combat, but the fact that he is willing to take risks, even against his team-mate, is essential for cementing himself as a lead driver.

Politics aside, Norris showed he is prepared to put his own championship ambitions ahead of intra-team harmony, even if making contact with Piastri was never his intention.

Given McLaren‘s intra-team rules and how close Piastri and Norris are, winning this year’s title may not be just about taking the crown, but also about asserting dominance in a team dynamic.

History shows that the likes of Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher never shied away from hard, decisive moves, even when the other car was their team-mate’s.

Norris’s move showed the kind of uncompromising ambition that he needs to win the title, but it might mean that, from now on, the gloves are off between himself and Piastri.

McLaren is lucky the season isn’t longer

Even after celebrating its 10th constructors’ championship in record-equalling time, McLaren should feel lucky that there are only six races left, given the step Verstappen’s Red Bull has taken.

Singapore confirmed that Verstappen is now a threat on all kinds of circuits. Even as the Dutch driver struggled with his car’s downshifts, he still managed to keep the McLarens at bay to further reduce the gap to Piastri.

Verstappen had the pace to be on pole, and would have likely made it three wins in a row had he started first.

McLaren, meanwhile, hasn’t won a race since the Dutch Grand Prix and appears to have lost the edge it had, not only over Red Bull, but also over Mercedes. At least if the last couple of races are anything to go by.

With six races left, it’s still highly unlikely Verstappen can overcome the 63-point deficit to Piastri, but the world champion’s recent surge in pace could have reshaped the championship fight had Red Bull found its form earlier.

McLaren doesn’t have to worry about the constructors’ championship anymore, but the fact that it might be gloves off from now on between Piastri and Norris means the Woking team won’t be able to relax much, let alone allow its drivers’ fighting to cost them points.

Verstappen may still be far away, but the trend is now unmistakable: he has the momentum, and it’s up to Piastri and Norris to stop it as soon as possible.

Russell found redemption in Singapore

Russell’s victory stands as a moment of redemption, two years after his heartbreaking crash at the same circuit.

In 2023, Russell’s race ended in agony when he clipped the wall on the final lap while chasing a podium – a mistake that haunted him deeply, judging by the times he mentioned it during the post-race press conference.

This time, however, Russell mastered the balance between aggression and discipline perfectly to take his second victory of the year.

The win appeared to exorcise some ghosts for the Mercedes driver.

“This track has not been my best friend over the years, and that’s often been through my own doing,” Russell admitted. “But as I said, yes, I’m a very different driver today to the one I was a couple of years ago, and I feel more complete, more confident.

“I know exactly what I need to do in given circumstances. Of course, I was nervous before the race as you’d expect, but I didn’t feel any additional nerves or any additional pressure. It just felt like another race, and I knew I had a chance to win, and I felt comfortable with that.

“So, you know, I’ve said it for a while — I feel ready to fight for a championship. I feel ready to take it to my next step.”

Now all he needs is for Mercedes to find out where its Singapore from came from and how it can bring it to the track every race weekend.

F1 is out of ideas to prevent one-stop races

Singapore exposed an uncomfortable truth for Formula 1 and the FIA: despite efforts to make races more dynamic, they seem out of ideas to prevent rather processional one-stop strategies.

In Baku, it was Pirelli’s super-soft C6 compound, a move that made no difference come Sunday.

For Singapore, the pitlane speed limit was increased this year, a move intended at reducing the time loss for pitstops, theoretically encouraging teams to make more than one stop.

Yet, as Sunday’s race showed, track position and tyre conservation were the priority over strategic variety.

The result was a race that felt flat – a reminder that tweaks around the edges are not doing much to change the fundamental incentives driving F1 strategy with the current generation of cars.

The immense downforce and turbulence generated by these cars made overtaking nearly impossible, even with DRS.

Combine that with durable Pirelli compounds and a narrow circuit like Marina Bay, and the optimal race plan becomes painfully predictable: start on the medium tyre, stretch the stint, and make a single switch to hards.

Verstappen was one of the few drivers who attempted to start with the soft to have an edge at the start, but it also made no difference.

The FIA’s minor regulatory adjustments – from tyre mandates to pitlane speed changes – don’t address the deeper issue that track position outweighs the benefit of fresh tyres.

Fortunately, it’s just six more races of this before the 2026 rules overhaul that promises to change it all.