McLaren Looking To Put Pressure On Max Verstappen As Singapore Grand Prix Weekend Gets Underway

As the Singapore Grand Prix weekend gets underway, McLaren will be looking to hurt Red Bull even more than last weekend when Red Bull was overtaken by McLaren in the Constructors Championship standings. This was the first time since 2022 that someone had managed to remove Red Bull from the top spot of the Constructors Standings. Now that McLaren is in the lead for the Constructors Championship they will be looking to put pressure on Max Verstappen to remove him from the top spot in the Drivers Championship. 

McLaren has the perfect opportunity to use Lando Norris and cut down Verstappen's lead in Singapore. They will also be looking to extend their lead further to the top of the constructors table. There is another problem for Red Bull as Singapore is a track they have struggled on and in comparison to Baku, it is a much trickier track with more twists and turns around.

McLaren Looking To Put Pressure On Red Bull

McLaren is ahead of Red Bull in the Formula 1 constructors’ race. Now for Lando Norris to put pressure on Max Verstappen for the drivers’ title.

Oscar Piastri’s win last week at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix put McLaren top in the teams’ standings — the key to F1’s lavish prize money — but teammate Norris only took a small bite out of Verstappen’s lead. 

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After starting 15th, Norris passed Verstappen late in the race to finish fourth, but the Dutch driver still leads by 59 points heading into the Singapore Grand Prix.

The talk in F1 this week has focused on McLaren’s seemingly flexible rear wing, which might help at high speed. Piastri said Thursday it’s legal and isn’t a “magic bullet” for their recent success.

F1 looks wide open right now with Ferrari and Mercedes both fighting for wins. McLaren will still have to battle hard even if Red Bull isn’t on the pace at a track where Verstappen has never won. 

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Piastri is the on-form driver in recent races, but in only his second season, he’s heading into a late-season swing of tracks like Singapore that he doesn’t know well. The Australian confirmed Thursday he’ll still help out Norris’ title challenge where he can. 

Red Bull's Singapore Challenge 

Singapore was the only track where Red Bull didn’t win last year. The team couldn’t find a competitive setup and Verstappen was far off the pace all weekend as Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr. took the victory.

Red Bull left Azerbaijan with some optimism that it’s fixed at least some of the balance problems introduced by its attempts to upgrade the car this season. Verstappen — now without a win in seven races — wasn’t happy with the car in Baku but emphasized it was a mistaken setup choice, not the underlying performance.

Singapore is slower than Baku and a trickier track for Red Bull, though.

“Our car generally is not very good on bumps and curbs and that’s of course what you have around here, so we need to try to stabilize that a bit,” Verstappen said Thursday in Singapore.

Street circuits tend to suit Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez, who was fast in Baku in search of a podium finish since April. Colliding with Sainz meant all those efforts were for nothing, though.

After Singapore, Red Bull and its second team RB are expected to choose whether to keep Daniel Ricciardo at RB or recall Liam Lawson instead. Ricciardo said “decisions will be made” before the next race in Austin, Texas, on Oct. 20. 

(With AP Inputs)