Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00We've got three, four, five lights on ahead of the drivers.
00:03It's lights out and away we go.
00:05That's an excellent start from Lando Norris and it's a brilliant start too from Lewis Hamilton.
00:09But he's not going to cut off Max Verstappen into Turn 1 as Lando Norris leads.
00:14From Verstappen, going wide there is the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso.
00:18A little bit of a kerfuffle going on down at Turn 1, but Norris got away very well.
00:23From Verstappen, from Hamilton, from Russell and Hülkenberg, who's gone ahead of Oscar Piastri.
00:27Then comes Fernando Alonso and then the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.
00:31Let's have a look at the race start then.
00:32Said it was an excellent start for Lando Norris.
00:35And you can see there, he clearly gets away quicker than Max Verstappen,
00:39who was busy covering rather than challenging.
00:42He was. And Max goes through, keeps the car in play.
00:46Did Piastri, I think so, just about.
00:49And they've gone round the penalty zone.
00:51It was the two Spaniards, basically, going round the penalty zone and somebody else behind them.
00:56And let's have a look at this start then.
01:01You live on your wits on the start.
01:03You know, you can't think about anything.
01:04You just, you literally maneuver the car.
01:08And so Alonso got a great big slide at the back going on and had to bail out really early.
01:16He did. It didn't cost him a place.
01:18It was clever thinking by Fernando Alonso, kept the speed.
01:21Look at Colopinto down the inside.
01:24That was a super move there, William.
01:26What's he doing?
01:28Well, it didn't please Alex Albon, but I tell you what, I rather enjoyed that.
01:32That was a super move from the Argentine.
01:35Yeah, as you said, Albon did not see it the same way.
01:40So that's Sainz then.
01:42Oh, it's all going very difficult, isn't it?
01:44As soon as you're a little bit out of sync with the pack,
01:47you fall through so quickly if you're not careful.
01:53This is Carlos Sainz, we saw him heading down the straight there,
01:57watching Sergio Perez battling with Yuki Tsunoda.
02:01Let's go on board with Oscar Piastri, race winner last time out.
02:05Got passed at the start by Hülkenberg.
02:07Traditional Singapore overtake as he slung it down the inside.
02:11And sporting a new set of tyres.
02:14It's all very wobbly on the curves, isn't it, for Lewis Hamilton.
02:17Look at the oscillations on that.
02:19Yeah, they run about 23 PSI, but they're wide tyres.
02:22They're ahead of them when Albon finally pits, so they've covered that one off.
02:25I would have thought as the track continues to rubber in,
02:31and they get rid of the fuel load, and especially the cars are a bit more down-forced,
02:34they will fire up the hard compound tyres just fine.
02:37Still hasn't cleared Joe Guanyu.
02:39This is the pain he's going to take coming through there.
02:42And he's in the 38s when he should be in the 36s.
02:45Absolutely, but look, he's gaining and he's gaining on Joe Guanyu
02:48as we head down Raffles Boulevard past the hotels and the shopping centre.
02:52He's picked up a nice little purchase there to put that Ferrari up into 16th.
02:57As we're on board with Lewis Hamilton after his pit stop,
03:01he has some overtaking to do.
03:03And the first driver ahead of him that he can get close to is Kevin Magnussen.
03:07He pulls out to the right-hand side and makes that move before the corner.
03:12To be honest, Verstappen could pit now,
03:14and Lando could probably stay out for another three or four laps
03:16and still be clearly ahead of Verstappen when he pits.
03:20Here comes Carlos Sainz.
03:22And eventually, he gets his man.
03:26Norris is just a plain second a lap faster than Verstappen.
03:31That McLaren works so, so well in free air.
03:34And Lewis Hamilton wants a bit more free air and cleaner air as well.
03:37And he's got past Esteban Ocon.
03:39That's a bit too early.
03:41We are one of the earlier stoppers, but not the earliest.
03:45Yeah, a bit too early there.
03:47Way too short.
03:49Yeah.
03:50He's saying Charles Leclerc has finally got past Fernando Alonso into Turn 16.
03:56He's made that stick as we watch now.
03:58Yuki Tsunoda passed by Lewis Hamilton,
04:01who goes very wide at Turn 16.
04:03And that just gives the place back to Tsunoda again.
04:06This is the defensive job that Nico Hülkenberg is doing.
04:09It's doing wonders, I'm sure, for his race.
04:12But as you say, wrecking at Charles Leclerc's.
04:14But he wouldn't have been down in ninth place
04:17if his tires gave him enough grip in a Turn 1.
04:19But they've got enough grip there going into the right hander at Turn 16.
04:23And finally, Charles Leclerc can get past the Haas.
04:27He is up into fourth place.
04:28And he's lost some front down force.
04:30Verstappen comes out wheel to wheel here,
04:33neck and neck with Charles Leclerc.
04:35Leclerc!
04:36Oh, that was touch and go.
04:39Gets ahead of Max Verstappen.
04:41And whilst Charles Leclerc has not pitted yet,
04:43the last thing Red Bull really wanted is Verstappen to be stuck behind the Ferrari.
04:47So is this where Lando Norris thought that he'd hit the wall?
04:50Yeah.
04:52And how close is it?
04:53There's the lock-up, there's the lock-up.
04:55Oh!
04:58He might have brushed it, but he didn't bang it.
04:59Yeah. Wow.
05:01Lucky escape.
05:03He nerfed it, didn't he?
05:04But it was quite soft, the wall was quite soft there.
05:07Closest driver in the championship to him, as we see George Russell.
05:11Once again, trying to get it closer to Charles Leclerc.
05:14Turn 16, he's got to go around the outside, goes off the track.
05:17As Charles Leclerc decided, you are not passing me at this particular moment.
05:21And he's going to get frustrated once more.
05:24Piastri will be flying.
05:25He'll have so much more grip than Hamilton and DRS.
05:29And he needs to lunge him early.
05:31He wants to get after George Russell.
05:33And he has done so.
05:35Hamilton made him go the long way round.
05:37The long way round was still short enough.
05:40Miles an hour onto the Raffles Boulevard,
05:42where you'll approach the top speed in this race
05:45of just over 190 miles an hour.
05:47DRS assisting Oscar Piastri on his way.
05:51And once again, he's going to have to go the long way round.
05:52And once again, he does go the long way round.
05:54And George Russell tries to fight that out.
05:57But to the cheers of the crowds who line the streets down there in the pack grandstands,
06:01Piastri has got past.
06:03I tell you what, it's like a second home race for Australian motorsport fans.
06:08Singapore...
06:10That's Daniel Ricciardo, who sees Esteban Ocon down the inside.
06:14And then Kevin Magnussen straight away.
06:17Charlie Leclerc just took 2.4 seconds out of Lewis Hamilton on the previous lap.
06:22That's Lando Norris.
06:25Did he hit the wall here?
06:27He did.
06:28Oh!
06:29That's... You remember when George Russell hit the wall on the other side of the track last year?
06:34Well, Lando has just hit the wall on the right-hand side.
06:38Let's go back to that in a couple of moments.
06:40This is Ricciardo really struggling on his tyres out there.
06:43And Lance Stroll getting past in the Aston Martin.
06:46Ricciardo has now pitted.
06:48Yeah, there's a little right kink into that turn.
06:50We're heading towards Turn 7.
06:52Here goes Charles Leclerc down the inside on Lewis Hamilton.
06:55Did not fight that.
06:56One I.O. to Lewis Hamilton because he realised he couldn't,
06:59given the performance in tyres to Charles Leclerc's advantage.
07:03There was nothing really Hamilton could do about that.
07:04Leclerc is up into the top five.
07:07And he is driving very slowly.
07:09There'll be white flags waving everywhere to say,
07:11slow car ahead.
07:14And, yeah.
07:15And he's hit the wall on the exit of Turn 5, I'm told.
07:19So, that's literally, he's probably just taken the tyre off the rim,
07:24or actually both broken the bead on the rim.
07:27There's Turn 5.
07:31Wow, that wasn't much of a hit, was it?
07:32No, it wasn't.
07:33But it's enough to...
07:36We heard it.
07:37Yeah.
07:39Felt it move the wall a touch.
07:41Bang.
07:43It hit it a bit harder than it first looked.
07:46I have understeer and I have oversteer.
07:51You've got a bit of everything there, George.
07:52This town, this could be my town.
07:54And this could be my moment.
07:56And just like he did in Zandvoort,
07:58Lando Norris has laid down a statement win here in Singapore tonight.
08:03Lando Norris wins the Singapore Grand Prix.
08:07And once again, he wins by a distance.
08:11It is the third Grand Prix win of the season for Lando Norris.
08:15It is not the fastest lap, though.
08:17Daniel Ricciardo has got that in what could be his final race.
08:22Max Verstappen will come home to take second place
08:25to spoil the McLaren 1-2
08:26and to keep as much of a charge going in his championship defence.
08:32Ricciardo, of course, is one of them.
08:33Good job.
08:34Yeah, I'll have a nice afternoon.
08:38Amazing car, weekend.
08:39Thank you very much, everyone.
08:41I won't have any more.
08:43Let's keep pushing.