Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris and Max Verstappen were upstaged at the Singapore Grand Prix, but their finishing positions behind George Russell had significant implications in Formula 1’s 2025 title race.

Going into the weekend, the focus was on whether championship leader Piastri and his McLaren team-mate and nearest challenger Norris could respond to the successive victories Red Bull’s Verstappen had claimed in Italy and Azerbaijan.

Instead, Russell overcame illness and a crash in Friday practice to take a stunning pole position, which set up a straightforward victory on Sunday for the Mercedes driver with overtaking remaining almost impossible at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.

The only real drama of the race came on the first lap and featured all three title contenders, as Norris surged from fifth on the grid to third by getting the other Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli off the line before passing Piastri at Turn 3 in a move that saw him make contact with both his team-mate and Verstappen.

Norris applied heavy pressure to Verstappen throughout the race but the Dutchman held on to extend his streak of top-two finishes to four races, while Piastri lacked the pace to challenge for the final podium position.

The upshot was that Norris cut Piastri’s lead at the top of the standings to 22 points, while Verstappen moved within 63 points of the Australian.

With six rounds remaining, three of which – in Austin, Sao Paulo and Qatar – feature Sprints, a maximum of 174 points remain available to each driver.

Did Verstappen do enough to stay in the hunt?

There had been a lot of discussion on media day in Singapore over whether Verstappen really was back in the title race.

Answers on the topic from drivers not involved in the battle ranged from silly to serious, with Russell – sat alongside his friend Norris at the time – putting Verstappen’s chances of winning a fifth successive drivers’ crown at “100 per cent”.

More sincere answers in the day’s other press conference saw Charles Leclerc give Verstappen a “20 per cent” chance, while Isack Hadjar gave an even lower estimate.

Given Singapore is a track where he and Red Bull have, relatively speaking, struggled in recent years, it threatened to be an event where Verstappen’s momentum was crushed and McLaren reasserted their dominance.

That scenario being avoided will undoubtedly prevent anyone from completely ruling Verstappen out of the battle, but the Dutchman’s overriding emotion appeared to be frustration at having beaten the McLarens but not claimed victory.

This was most evident after qualifying when Verstappen fumed as he was accused of unnecessarily hampering his final flying lap, which came up short of Russell’s pole effort.

He knew his chances of victory on Sunday had been hugely reduced, and his words after the race provided context to his frustration 24 hours earlier.

Asked by Sky Sports F1 whether he believed he was still in the title race, Verstappen replied: “For that you need to win, you need to dominate. We’re not doing that, or at least we were not doing that this weekend.

“We’re not catching up enough. For that, you had to win today, and we didn’t. That’s how it is. We already lost way too many points in the beginning of the season, that’s quite clear.

“But we just try to see it race by race. We tried to do the best we can. This track is still not our favourite, I think also for the car, but nevertheless, second is still a great result.”

While Verstappen’s cup appeared to be half-empty in Singapore, at the start of the weekend, most would have seen any sort of gain on the McLarens as a positive result for him.

The fact that he now needs to gain an average of 10.5 points at each of the remaining rounds to catch Piastri does mean that bigger inroads are required, but if Red Bull’s apparent progress of recent weeks continues in the United States and Mexico, he could have more opportunities for victories.

‘A big deal’ as Norris maintains momentum

Norris has been attempting to fight back since his unfortunate retirement from the Dutch Grand Prix with a reliability issue saw him fall 34 points behind Piastri.

While Piastri had a disastrous weekend at the previous round in Azerbaijan as he crashed out of both qualifying and the race, Norris failed to capitalise in Baku as he only managed seventh himself.

Any momentum he had built seemed to completely fizzle out when an underwhelming qualifying performance in Singapore left him fifth on the grid, two places behind Piastri at a circuit where making ground is very difficult.

It was therefore essential that Norris took the only real opportunity he had – the start of the race.

A superb getaway took him past Antonelli and he then showed no hesitation as the opportunity to attack Piastri opened up.

It was actually the Australian who first moved to squeeze Norris on the way into the second corner, but Norris kept his composure and his foot on the gas to gain the inside line on the way into turn three.

The Brit insisted after the race that had it not been for him clipping the rear of Verstappen as the Red Bull steadily took the corner, he would have completed the move on Piastri with little drama.

As it was, the contact with Verstappen caused Norris to oversteer right and into wheel-to-wheel contact with Piastri, who was unsurprisingly unimpressed by the incident.

With the order at the end of lap one unchanged at the chequered flag, Norris gained on Piastri for a third successive race, somehow finding a way to keep his momentum going.

Sky Sports F1 pundit and 2009 world champion Jenson Button believed the manner in which Norris pulled off an authoritative move on his team-mate was even more important than the points gain itself.

“For Lando, this is quite a big deal,” Button said. “He took points out of Oscar at the last two races.

“That move at Turn 3, I think in the mental game, was more important than three points.

“He would have been very happy coming out of that. They are both used to winning races but he’s third and he seemed happy because he took points off his team-mate and overtook him to do that.”

The latest reduction in the gap means Norris must make up an average of 3.7 points per round the rest of the way to catch Piastri, but, like Verstappen, he will know that he’s going to need to return to the top step of the podium sooner rather than later to make his dreams of a maiden title a reality.

F1’s title race now heads back to North America, with the United States Grand Prix in Austin up first on October 17-19 live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime