Norris wasn’t “necessarily overpushing” despite touching walls in Singapore GP

Lando Norris has suggested he wasn’t “necessarily overpushing” after escaping from twice touching with the wall without damage during a dominant Singapore Grand Prix.

The McLaren driver put in a statement drive to defeat Formula 1 championship rival Max Verstappen by over 20 seconds at the Marina Bay Circuit, including leading at the end of the first lap from pole for the first time in his career.

But during the race, he tweaked his front wing after locking up and heading straight on at Turn 14, nudging the barrier on exit, before almost replicating the incident that forced George Russell out of last year’s event on entry to Turn 10 later in the race.

Norris also ran wide when lapping Williams driver Franco Colapinto in the closing stages, though had plenty of margin for error at the Turn 16/17 chicane.

“It was an amazing race – a few too many close calls,” said Norris. “I had a couple of little moments in the middle, but it was well-controlled, I think.

“The car was mega, so I could push. We were flying the whole race and at the end I could just chill. So it was nice. It’s still tough. I’m a bit out of breath, but a very fun one.”

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38

Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images

Asked whether he needed to be pushing so hard that mistakes were made given his dominance over the field, Norris replied: “It’s not that you’re necessarily overpushing, sometimes it can be that you’re just chilling too much.

“Maybe it was a bit of both. I don’t know what it is, it’s tricky. It was still tough out there, easy to lock the tyres like I did. So, I still pushed, I didn’t want to have a one-second lead, I wanted to have the biggest lead possible.”

On the difficulty of the race – the first Singapore GP without a safety car intervention – given the hot and humid conditions, he explained: “Similar to Qatar last year, but I wasn’t taking it easy. I could have taken it a lot more easy, so a little dizzy at the minute.”

The result means that Norris closed in again on Verstappen’s lead in the points standings and, when questioned on the decreasing gap, the triple world champion insisted: “This also can change very quickly again.

“So, we just need to keep on trying, keep to at one point try to overturn it a bit, not always finishing behind, but we’ll see how that goes.”