In Round 18 of the 2025 Formula One season, teams took on the famous Marina Bay circuit. The Grand Prix, known as the ‘Original Night Race’, proved to be as thrilling as expected.
Due to the extremely hot and humid weather before the start of the weekend, the race was declared a ‘heat hazard’, meaning that drivers could wear a cooling vest during the race. Those who chose not to wear a cooling vest had to carry extra ballast in the car to ensure weight equality.
On Saturday evening, George Russell pulled off an impressive lap in Q3 to secure pole position ahead of Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri. Piastri’s teammate and championship rival Lando Norris had to settle for fifth place, behind Kimi Antonelli.
Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz were both disqualified from qualifying due to a technical infringement; the DRS flaps on both sides of their rear wings exceeded 85 mm.
There was some rain on the track before the race started, but it had dried out by the time the lights went out.
Most drivers opted for medium tyres; however, Max Verstappen opted for soft tyres to maximise the advantage of his front-row start.
Russell and Verstappen had a clean and uneventful start, keeping their leads.
Norris, on the other hand, jumped two places at the start, overtaking Antonelli and his teammate Piastri. Norris and Piastri made slight contact in turn three, with the Brit nudging the Aussie close to the wall. Piastri voiced his frustration over the radio. The incident was noted, but was soon deemed “no further action”.
Russell was out in front, steadily pulling away from his rivals. Verstappen pitted for hard tyres on lap 20, leaving Norris 10 seconds behind Russell. Russell then pitted on lap 26, leaving the two McLarens out in front. Concerned about a Ferrari undercut with Leclerc on Piastri’s tail, the team from Woking pitted their drivers on consecutive laps to avoid this.
Norris, who has recently experienced his fair share of pit stop issues, completed a clean stop in 2.1 seconds. However, when Piastri pitted for hard tyres, the team struggled to fit the rear left tyre, resulting in a 5.2-second pit stop. It was yet another weekend of McLaren pit stop troubles. Fernando Alonso’s pit crew also struggled, resulting in a 9.2-second pit stop.
Verstappen’s stint on hard tyres seemed to work well, as he started to catch Russell, cutting into his time advantage bit by bit. However, the Dutchman experienced a slight lockup and was soon under pressure from Norris, who was chasing him. Both cars were navigating the traffic of backmarkers and, towards the end, Piastri started to catch up with the pair in front.
Hamilton, who was charging to catch Antonelli with a new set of soft tyres, overtook his Mercedes replacement. However, he then complained that he had lost his brakes, allowing Antonelli to overtake him again, as well as Leclerc, his teammate, who had let him by earlier.
At the end of lap 62, George Russell took the chequered flag, over five seconds ahead of Max Verstappen, with Lando Norris completing the podium.
McLaren needed just 13 points to secure the Constructors’ Championship for the second year running, which they achieved with third and fourth place.
On the final lap, Fernando Alonso closed down the large gap rapidly and just missed overtaking Hamilton, who was experiencing brake issues, by 0.4 seconds at the finish line. However, after the race, Hamilton was referred to the stewards for exceeding the track limits and was given a five-second penalty, dropping him to eighth place behind Alonso.
The top ten finishers were: Russell, Verstappen, Norris, Piastri, Antonelli, Leclerc, Alonso, Hamilton, Bearman and Sainz.
Piastri now leads Norris by 22 points in the Drivers’ Championship, with Verstappen a further 41 points behind. There are only six races to go. Next, Formula One heads to Austin, Texas.
Feature image credit: Mercedes F1 Team (Twitter/ X)
Written by Leslie.
Edited by Jessica.
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