Lando Norris (P4, 12 pts): 8.5/10
There must have been a terrible feeling in the pit of Lando Norris' stomach when he slipped to P19 in the first practice session at Singapore. He was trying out the new sidepod upgrades on the McLaren, and it looked like it had all gone very wrong. Even Daniel Ricciardo, in an unchanged MCL36, was a second faster in 12th! But Norris started to get the hang of the changes and the situation was reversed in FP2, although getting through to the final round of qualifying on Saturday still looked like it would be a tall order. It was, but Norris delivered, making it through to Q3 and claiming sixth on the grid. "Better than we were expecting: tough, challenging, but very happy with how it turned out." In all honestly, Norris didn't expect to be able to hold out long on Sunday amidst so many faster cars. He's not the most aggressive driver off the grid, so just hanging on to sixth would have been an achievement. Instead, he immediately attacked Fernando Alonso - one of the most hard-nosed drivers on the grid - and came away with fifth, which is where he stayed until Lewis Hamilton's error on lap 33 gifted him another spot. By now he was too far away from Carlos Sainz to challenge for a podium, but fourth together with Ricciardo's P5 means McLaren have wiped away Alpine's 18 point lead in the constructors championship in their battle over fourth in the standings. All in all it was a very, very good day for all in papaya orange.
Carlos Sainz (P3, 15 pts): 8/10
Carlos Sainz was two tenths quicker than his Ferrari team mate Charles Leclerc when he topped the timesheets at the end of Friday, but Leclerc was back in charge on Saturday and Sainz would ultimately be disappointed to miss out on the front row in qualifying. He started from fourth, just behind Lewis Hamilton, and was able to snatch the position from the Mercedes driver at the start of the race when Hamilton ran deep. There was slight contact, but nothing that would stop them carrying on (and nothing to attract the scrutiny of the race stewards, either.) As the race went on, Sainz was clearly the slower of the pair: as he parried attacks from Hamilton, he saw the race leaders disappear into the distance ahead of him, in a class of their own. But Sainz did succeed in thwarting Hamilton, and the seven-time world champion eventually made a mistake that dropped him down the order. With no one else within range, and Sainz himself too far back to make an impression on the top two, he had to settle for P3 at the finish line. A decent performance, and yet one that by Sainz' own high standards feels just a little below par and under the weather.
