Norris brushes off Verstappen’s Singapore gripe: “Red Bull complain about everything”
The Marina Bay lights were still buzzing when Lando Norris turned a simmering Red Bull grievance into a shrug.
After a spiky end to Q3, Max Verstappen was left fuming that Norris was up the road on his final run. The Red Bull driver had been on a lap that flirted with George Russell’s pole time through the first two sectors, then backed out in the final corners with the McLaren ahead and ducking into the pit lane. On the radio, Gianpiero Lambiase flagged it with a pointed “your mate,” and Verstappen’s irritation spilled into parc fermé. “That’s what happens when there’s a car in front of you just cruising two seconds in front,” he said. “That’s noted. It will be remembered as well.”
Norris, though, wasn’t biting. “Ah, they always complain. They complain about everything, it’s Red Bull,” he smiled, when the inevitable question landed. Was he aware Verstappen was closing? “I didn’t even know, I was like three seconds ahead,” he said. When a reporter suggested the gap wasn’t clear, Norris deadpanned: “I can’t work it out either.”
It was typical Singapore qualifying chaos: traffic roulette, tight margins, and a bit of theatre. Russell nailed a superb lap to take pole; McLaren, by contrast, had to grind. Norris ended up fifth, two places behind teammate — and title rival — Oscar Piastri on Sunday’s grid. On pure pace, the papaya cars didn’t look like the class of the field under the lights.
That reality explains Norris’s tone more than any Red Bull side-eye. “I mean, it’s just points,” he said of his race target. “I’m in fifth, so not a lot of points, and I’m behind the people I need to be behind, but we’ve got nothing to worry about. I’ve just got to try and get my head down. It’s not an easy track to overtake on, so that’s why today’s a bit frustrating, of course, and I’m not the happiest about today from my own performance, but no-one to worry about.”
There’s a kernel of truth there. Marina Bay rewards track position and punishes impatience; getting stuck in the train is a recurring local hazard. If McLaren didn’t quite have the single-lap snap to fight for the front row, Sunday becomes an exercise in execution: nail the start, cover the undercut, and pounce on any Safety Car timing that drops from the neon sky.
As for Verstappen’s frustration, it won’t be the first or last time qualifying traffic turns the paddock into a debate club. Q3 here compresses everyone into the same few corners and, inevitably, someone ends up in someone else’s air. Norris had already peeled off the racing line and committed to the pit entry. Verstappen, close to the limit and chasing the benchmark, wasn’t in the mood to see orange in his peripheral vision.
Whether Red Bull “remember” it or not, the grid is set and the points arrive on Sunday, not Saturday night. McLaren’s bigger picture is clear: keep Piastri and Norris in the title frame as the flyaways stack up, and minimise damage on days when outright pace isn’t there.
Norris’s final word felt very much like a driver compartmentalising the noise. A little jab at a rival, a bigger focus on his own homework. Singapore’s a long race in brutal heat. He knows the only answer that matters comes with a chequered flag.
