Singapore Grand Prix: Max Verstappen builds major momentum as ‘no one is very happy’ at McLaren after bad day at the office

If this isn’t a major concern for Antonelli, it certainly is for McLaren.

They had their own purple patch this summer, when Lando Norris scored back-to-back wins in Hungary and the Netherlands, and would have won in Madrid if not for the unfortunate timing of a virtual safety car.

But the world champions have lost competitiveness in recent races and, before the Singapore Grand Prix, they occupy third place in the constructors’ championship, just 11 points ahead of Red Bull.

Saturday in Singapore was a bad day at the office for McLaren.

Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris were sprinting toward fourth and fifth when Norris dove inside his teammate at turn five on the final lap.

This is not a common overtaking location and from McLaren’s perspective it was a decision with no reward, only risk.

This decision might have made sense if it had come earlier in the race and allowed Norris to challenge Leclerc, struggling ahead of them, for third place.

But on the final lap, Norris was not going to take his chances against Leclerc even if he had succeeded – the only overtaking place remaining was at the end of the following straight into turn seven.

If the McLaren drivers swapped places it would make no difference to the team in terms of collective points, but if it went wrong the cost could be high.

And that’s what happened. Norris was in position to make a legitimate move, but they came together, hacked in tandem, Piastri in the barriers and out of the race and Norris slipped to eighth. Nine points became one.

The commissioners took no action, believing that “both drivers had contributed to the incident”.

Piastri had explained during the hearing that he did not expect Norris to try to move there and had tried to leave space when he saw him.

Norris argued that his car was in a position that, according to the rules, allowed him to make an overtaking attempt, so he expected to have space and had braked and gone over the curb when he realized he would not get as much as expected.

He said: “There are two sides, one is what the stewards say and it’s fair reasoning, no one is to blame. But I apologized because it was always me attacking, as I had the right to do. If I sat there and was annoying like I should be, nothing would have happened. So really, it’s still my fault but I deserved to go for the space and I believe always that I had the right to do so.”

Norris added: “As you probably can imagine, no one is very happy. I’m not happy, Oscar’s not happy. Neither of us wanted it to turn out this way. There were things we both could have done better and, yes, we talked about it and moved on.”