2025 Singapore GP: Statement victory for George Russell, ‘Papaya Rules’ cast shadow over McLaren’s Constructors’ win, Fernando Alonso’s foul-mouthed rant, and more
For the toughest race on the calendar, F1 returned to the Marina Bay Street Circuit for the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday, October 5.
A dominant performance from Mercedes’ George Russell, more ‘Papaya Rules’ controversy for McLaren despite a Constructors’ title win, and an angry Fernando Alonso - the weekend has once again given us plenty to discuss.
Sports News Blitz’s F1 writer, Henry Eccles, takes a look at the biggest talking points to come out of the 2025 Singapore GP.
George Russell ‘feels ready to fight for a championship’ after dominant win
In his own words, Singapore has not been George Russell’s “best friend” over the years.
In 2022, the Brit finished in P14 after he turned into Haas’ Mick Schumacher, picking up a puncture and crossing the line two laps down to winner Sergio Perez.
A year later, when trying to snatch the win from Carlos Sainz, Russell crashed out of third place on the very last lap.
And while he did finish the 2024 race in P4, the 27-year-old was visibly shaken up by the harsh conditions in the Singaporean heat, as Drive to Survive viewers could tell you.
This year, however, in a car known to struggle in warmer conditions, Russell shocked the F1 world when he achieved pole position on Saturday, beating Max Verstappen by nearly two tenths, and championship leader Piastri by almost four.
On raceday, Russell made light work of getting away from Verstappen and the two McLarens of Piastri and Lando Norris, and was completely in control around Marina Bay, coolly managing the gap to the cars behind throughout.
Finishing five seconds clear of Verstappen, it was an even more dominant display than his win in Canada, and with eight podium scores in total this year, a fine way to continue what has been Russell’s best year in F1.
“I'm a very different driver today to the one I was a couple of years ago, and I feel more complete, more confident,” Russell said post-race.
“Of course, I was nervous before the race, as you'd expect, but I didn't feel any additional nerves or any additional pressure. It just felt like another race, and I knew I had a chance to win, and I felt comfortable with that.
“So I've said it for a while - I feel ready to fight for a championship. I feel ready to take it to my next step.”
Despite his stellar performances this season, Russell is somehow yet to sign a 2026 contract, but Mercedes boss Toto Wolff did praise his race as a ‘step-up’ from difficult races in previous years.
“I think we've seen George in the past with these moments, but not recently, and that's the step-up that he has made also this year, that these things don't happen again,” Wolff said.
“He was in control of the race today, eking out an advantage, managing it when Max was a bit closer, and there was not at any moment a doubt that there was any risk in his driving.
“He’s been formidable this year… you can see when it merges, the car being in a perfect space, and the driver being on top of things, that becomes the dominant formula, and that is what we've seen here.”
There was also good news from the other side of the Mercedes garage, as Italian rookie Kimi Antonelli finished P5, making it three consecutive points finishes for the first time since the very start of the 2025 season.
McLaren’s ‘Papaya Rules’ cloud Constructors’ title win
Make no mistake, Sunday was a good day for McLaren.
Norris and Piastri’s respective P3 and P4 finishes in Singapore were more than enough to secure McLaren their tenth ever Constructors’ title, moving them into second on the all-time list behind historic rivals Ferrari.
It was also the first time the Grove team have been able to successfully defend their Constructors’ crown since the 1990-91 season, when they were led by legends Gerhard Berger and Aryton Senna.
But once again, McLaren’s self-proclaimed ‘Papaya Rules’, their rules of engagement that they say promote hard but clean racing between their drivers, stole the spotlight in Singapore.
On Lap 1, Norris made a good start from P5, overtaking Antonelli and then making a daring move down the inside of Turn 3 on his team-mate.
But Norris made light contact with the back of Verstappen’s car, and almost barged Piastri into the wall as he got past, with the Aussie instantly telling his radio engineer Tom Stallard: “That wasn’t very teamlike, but sure.”
After a quick intra-team investigation, Stallard calmly responded: “No further action from the stewards. As a team, we can see Lando had to avoid Verstappen, so we won't take any action during the race. We can review further afterwards.”
To which Piastri replied: “That's not fair. I'm sorry, that's not fair. If he has to avoid another car by crashing into his team-mate, then that's a pretty **** job of avoiding.”
Both McLaren drivers stayed where they were until the end of the race, as Norris failed to get past championship rival Verstappen, and Piastri’s struggles to enter the podium fight were compounded by a slow 5.2s pit stop.
While Piastri was mostly tight-lipped post-race, Norris defended his move, saying: “I mean it was slippery, it was still wet in a lot of places. It’s racing. I put it on the inside, I had a small correction, but nothing more than that. It was good racing.”
Pipping his team-mate to the final podium spot, Norris has now reduced Piastri’s championship lead to just 22 points with six full races and three sprints left of the 2025 season.
But the fact that the main McLaren talking point is once again around their rules of racing rather than what was such an impressive Constructors’ win - equalling Red Bull’s record for the earliest point of the season to do it - is not only a shame, but such a slippery slope going into the crucial stages of the Drivers’ championship.
READ MORE: Singapore GP: McLaren win 2025 Constructors’ Championship amid more intrateam drama
Max Verstappen is here to stay in the title fight
After two dominant victories in a row at high-speed, low-downforce circuits at Monza and Baku, all eyes were on Red Bull’s Verstappen at the very different Marina Bay Street Circuit to see whether his late title charge was to be taken seriously.
And even though he struggled with drivability and McLaren scored a decent points haul, Verstappen’s P2 finish has cut his gap to Piastri down to 63 points, and proved that he could compete for wins at every track until the season’s end.
A gamble to start on the Soft tyres, hoping to gain an advantage on the dirtier side of the track at lights out, backfired and later left Verstappen having to defend against Norris for P2.
But defend he did, and impressively too, considering Norris’ pace advantage and the fact he had described the car as “undriveable” after locking up and nearly hitting the barrier at Turn 14 earlier in the race.
“It was a bit more difficult than I would have hoped for, to be honest,” Verstappen said post-race.
“The car was also not where I wanted it to be, unfortunately. A few things of course to learn from that, I think, from some decisions that we made throughout the weekend in terms of the set-up.”
When asked if any encouragement could be taken from beating the McLarens at a low-downforce circuit, Verstappen was eager to stress he is still taking things “race by race.”
Meanwhile, Team Principal Laurent Mekies was a tad more optimistic, describing Red Bull’s progress in recent weeks as “spectacular.”
“Being able to fight for the win here, it means a lot,” Mekies said.
“If you look, we finished a few seconds away from George. This is good news. It means that what we have unlocked is not only low-downforce specific.
“And it's credit to everyone, again, back at home, that have never given up. It's credit to Max, that has been, with his sensitivity, pushing us to explore different avenues. And finally, we found an avenue that unlocked a bit of performance.”
With Verstappen seemingly now able to fight on all fronts in his RB21, and the two McLaren drivers likely to take more points off of each other after wrapping up the Constructors’, it would still be foolish to rule out the four-time world champion in the Drivers’ title battle.
Another ‘mega frustrating’ weekend for Ferrari
Despite being tipped to perform at the high-downforce Marina Bay circuit, as they did at Barcelona and Monaco, it was more of the same for Ferrari - a strong Friday practice followed by a difficult qualifying leaving them with too much work to do on Sunday.
Indeed, respective P6 and P7 qualifying finishes for Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc put the Scuderia in a really tough position at a track where overtaking is so difficult.
And during the Grand Prix, Ferrari’s race was fraught with problems from the very beginning.
Both drivers reported brake overheating as early as Lap 2, which then hit Hamilton particularly hard on the final laps of the race.
While the Ferrari drivers crossed the line in P6 and P7, Hamilton lost places by having to swap with his team-mate and then received a five-second penalty for cutting corners while dragging his brake-less SF-21 to the chequered flag, eventually getting demoted to P8.
Team Principal Fred Vasseur said: “We didn’t extract the best from the car, I think honestly. We are doing 29.7s Q1 yesterday and 29.7s Q3. We are struggling like hell all race [just] to be on the back foot.
“For the team it’s mega frustrating, for the team and drivers and for all of us, because we are not pushing. And at the end of the day, we are putting so much effort to be there, that when you have to do all the races on the back foot, it’s horrible.”
Leclerc, who has now failed to score a podium in five races, noted how Red Bull and Mercedes have made big steps forward in their car development in recent weeks, leaving his team as “the only one that didn’t find that solution.”
“We are struggling massively with the car. It's not easy," Leclerc said.
"I wish I could say that I'm positive for the rest of the season, I don't think there's anything in the car that proves to me that we are going to do a step forward.
"I think this is the reality of our situation at the moment. I don't quite know how to turn that situation around because we don't have new parts or anything coming to the car.”
After losing P2 in the Constructors’ to Mercedes at Baku, Ferrari are now 27 points behind thanks to the Silver Arrows’ strong weekend.
And with Verstappen on the charge at Red Bull, the Scuderia find themselves only eight points ahead of P4.
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A feisty Fernando Alonso wins Driver of the Day
The beneficiary of Hamilton’s penalty was Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, who made his way from P10 to secure a ‘best of the rest finish’ of P7 and the Driver of the Day award.
However, the veteran was not without a few spicy comments during the race.
While Verstappen’s gamble on the Soft tyres failed, it did the trick for the Spaniard, who gained two places at the start and managed to stay in front of Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar before the sole pit stop sequence.
After a 9.2s stop, however, Alonso dropped back behind Hadjar into P15, furiously telling his race engineer with 34 laps to go: “If you speak to me every lap, I will disconnect the radio.”
On a fresher and softer set of Medium tyres, the 44-year-old did not take long to overtake the Frenchman in P13.
Although the rookie, who was suffering engine issues, did put up quite the fight, which led Alonso to comment: “Trophy for hero of the race!”
After impressively making his way up to P8, Alonso then got a good look at Hamilton cutting corners due to brake problems on the final lap, finishing just four tenths behind his former McLaren team-mate turned arch-nemesis.
A foul-mouthed Alonso ranted: “I cannot f****** believe it. I mean, I cannot f****** believe it. I cannot f****** believe it. Is it safe to drive with no brakes?
"For me, you cannot drive when the car is unsafe. Sometimes they try to disqualify me with no mirror, and now you have no brakes and everything is fine? I doubt it.”
It was not long before Alonso was bumped up to P7, however, and when he had calmed down, he reflected positively on his performance.
“It was a very good race for us,” the two-time world champion said.
“The car was fast, the car felt fast in the first stint, we opened a nice gap with the soft tyre, lasted longer than we expected so that was very good news. And then a slow pit stop, but the car was still very fast in the second stint and we finished in the same position.
"Everyone fitted the Hard in the second stint, I fitted the medium, so that was a good call from the team and I had this tyre advantage that gave the opportunity to overtake."
The P7 result means Alonso has now scored points in seven of the last 10 Grand Prix, moving him up to P11 in the Drivers’ standings, ahead of fellow Spaniard Carlos Sainz and team-mate Lance Stroll, who could only achieve P13 in Singapore.
Next up for F1 is a return to North America, with the United States Grand Prix taking place in Austin on the weekend of October 17-19.
The race gets underway on Sunday, October 5, at 8pm UK time, and fans will be able to catch all the action live on Sky Sports F1.
