Lando Norris laughed at Max Verstappen's suffering at Singapore Grand Prix

18 September 2023 , 08:59

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Lando Norris laughed at Max Verstappen's suffering at Singapore Grand Prix

Lando Norris admitted he had laughed with Max Verstappen about how slow Red Bull were after beating the Dutchman for the first time this season.

Verstappen could only manage fifth place at the Singapore Grand Prix as his historic winning streak came to an end. The result actually went some way to make just what a horrible weekend Red Bull had with their car misbehaving from the start.

Despite the RB19s being in a class of their own all year, they just would not adapt to the Marina Bay street circuit. It led to Verstappen qualifying just 11th with team-mate Sergio Perez two places further back, with both of them improving on race day to finish in the minor points positions.

Carlos Sainz won the race in their absence, ending Red Bull's 100 per cent record for the 2023 campaign. And Norris was runner-up having worked together with the Ferrari racer to keep the charging Mercedes cars at bay in the latter stages.

In the post-race press conference, Norris spoke of his surprise about just how off the pace the Red Bulls were. The McLaren driver told reporters how he and Verstappen had shared a laugh about it the previous day, after qualifying.

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He said: "I don't know what they struggled with but when I watched his onboard yesterday I kind of laughed because I've never seen a car that bad before. Max also laughed about it. We'll see next weekend, I think they'll be back at the top."

Verstappen concurs with that belief that Red Bull will be back to their old selves in Japan in a few days' time. He said: "I feel good about Suzuka. We learned from today and what we got wrong yesterday. I cannot go into details. Getting back on top is the target, yes."

Referring to the end of his winning streak at 10 races, the championship leader added: "I knew that this day would come, so for me it's absolutely fine. To keep winning, everything needs to be perfect. I think everything went against us in the race with the safety car – it was possibly the worst-case scenario.

"I think we did the best we could. We had good pace and we were just unfortunate with the timing of the safety car. If it weren't for that, I really think that we would have been in a good place to fight up front."

Daniel Moxon