Did McLaren miss an opportunity to ensure Norris scored the fastest lap point? · RaceFans

Lando Norris’ hopes of claiming a maximum possible points score were dashed by Daniel Ricciardo in the dying moments of the Singapore Grand Prix.

Speculation was rife that Red Bull had pressed their second team, RB, to use Ricciardo to deprive Max Verstappen’s closest championship rival of a valuable point. But did McLaren miss an opportunity to render Ricciardo’s efforts irrelevant.

Norris, who brushed the wall twice on his way to victory, admitted he was pushing hard at one stage in the hope of being able to do the same as Ricciardo, and pit for a set of soft tyres at the end of the race for his own attempt at the fastest lap time.

“I was flat out,” he said after the race. “I was probably pushing a bit too hard, it was definitely not like I was cruising.

“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.”

If Norris had got the chance to do a lap on soft tyres at the end of the race, he likely would not have had to try very hard to get the bonus point. Ricciardo’s lap time on softs was only two-tenths of a second faster than what Norris was capable of on an 18-lap-old set of hards.

Norris came closing to getting the lap he needed. A pit stop costs around 30 seconds at the Marina Bay circuit and his lead over Verstappen peaked at 29.1s on laps 53-54. But given the potential cost of a slow pit stop, McLaren would likely have wanted a more comfortable margin than just an extra 0.9 seconds.

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By the end of the race, Verstappen had Norris’ lead down to 20 seconds. The McLaren driver lost a significant amount of time in the final laps as he took care lapping a three-car train comprising Nico Hulkenberg, Sergio Perez and Franco Colapinto.

Was there an opportunity before then for Norris to build up the lead he needed? He clearly drove with some margin in hand prior to lap 48, when he produced his quickest lap of the race. At that point his lead stood at 26 seconds, so had he pushed harder on his tyres earlier on, the opportunity could have existed.

But it’s not certain McLaren would have been prepared to risk a pit stop in these circumstances. The team suffered a problem during a practice pit stop on Friday which delayed Oscar Piastri’s start to the first session of the weekend. Norris might have needed to twist their arm into letting him make a pit stop, as Verstappen did with his team in Austria last year.

2024 Singapore Grand Prix lap chart

The positions of each driver on every lap. Click name to highlight, right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:

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2024 Singapore Grand Prix race chart

The gaps between each driver on every lap compared to the leader’s average lap time. Very large gaps omitted. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:

2024 Singapore Grand Prix lap times

All the lap times by the drivers (in seconds, very slow laps excluded). Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and toggle drivers using the control below:

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2024 Singapore Grand Prix fastest laps

Each driver’s fastest lap:

NB. Magnussen’s fastest lap time was deleted for a track limits infringement.

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2024 Singapore Grand Prix tyre strategies

The tyre strategies for each driver:

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2024 Singapore Grand Prix pit stop times

How long each driver’s pit stops took:

2024 Singapore Grand Prix

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