Lando Norris inpursuit of points swing against Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing braced for pain after 2023 flop, driver market set for crunch with Daniel Ricciardo on the outer, FIA in swearing crackdown #adessonews

The championship leader is dead. Long live the championship leader.

A new era in Formula 1 has dawned. McLaren is in control of the constructors championship. Red Bull Racing is in decline, its trajectory of points losses steepening the longer the season has endured.

The reigning constructors championship — and now former leader — is in a form slump. The team’s lost control of the constructors championship for the first time in 55 races.

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Max Verstappen hasn’t won in seven weekends and is worried his 59-point advantage over Lando Norris won’t be enough to seal his fourth drivers championship.

And now we arrive in Singapore, the ultimate F1 bogey track.

Mercedes struggled to win here at the height of its glory days, with a range of excuses — extending even to an electromagnetic pulse emanating from beneath a bridge that comprises part of the track — proffered for its various unusual defeats.

Now it’s Red Bull Racing’s turn, this having been the sole blemish in its almost perfect 2023 season.

But it’s not just Norris versus Verstappen. Oscar Piastri has been making increasingly forcefully clear that he’s a force to be reckoned with.

The Australian is F1’s most in-form driver, being the highest scorer over the last 11 rounds.

His win in Azerbaijan last weekend was his best performance yet, equal parts brains and brawn.

“It’s always nice when you can reflect on a race where you feel like you’ve done a very good job and a job you can be proud of,” he said. “I’m ready to try and go again this weekend.”

It’s an understated statement of intent befitting Formula 1’s most understated killer.

Singapore is no small challenge. Arguably the sport’s most demanding track physically and mentally, performance doesn’t just come easily.

A win this weekend will be as hard earned as any. And with so much still on the line this season, victory could be pivotal too.

PIT TALK PODCAST: Oscar Piastri has won his second grand prix with a gutsy pass and centimetre-perfect defensive drive to fend off pole-getter Charles Leclerc in a Baku classic.

CAN LANDO NORRIS LAND A BLOW ON MAX VERSTAPPEN’S LEAD?

The viability of Lando Norris’s championship challenge will be decided in the next two races.

After Norris’s qualifying disaster in Azerbaijan, the magic number is 8.43 points per round.

It will require a perfect season from Norris — every grand prix and sprint win and every fastest lap — to guarantee himself the title on countback in Abu Dhabi.

Of course that path becomes wider if Verstappen and Red Bull Racing continue underperforming, but the odds are still long.

Singapore will be the first crucial test of whether Norris really can fight back to bring the title onto his terms.

On paper it’s a golden opportunity. Red Bull Racing bombed out of this race last year and is expected to struggle again.

In Azerbaijan Norris would have outscored Verstappen by eight points or more had he started from a representative spot on the grid. Had Sergio Pérez and Carlos Sainz not crashed out at the end of the race, the margin could have been 12 points or more.

Instead the margin came down by just three points.

With Red Bull Racing braced for a worse weekend in Marina Bay, Norris simply must capitalise.

But the impetus is boosted by the Circuit of the Americas being next on the calendar.

Not only should that be friendlier to RBR, but the reigning constructors champion will also bring an upgrade to the United States it hopes will rescue its season.

It mightn’t be enough to emerge ahead of McLaren, but the team hopes it will stem the bleeding.

If Norris still needs more than eight points per round and Verstappen is suddenly capable of regular podiums again, the title fight will almost certainly be over.

It’s important, then, that Norris does maximum damage this weekend to bolster his credentials while McLaren still has the upper hand.

Otherwise his chances really will be out of his hands.

CAN RED BULL RACING AVENGE LAST YEAR’S SINGAPORE SHOCKER?

Despite Red Bull Racing’s iron-like grip on last year’s season, steamrollering the competition weekend after weekend, the one race the team couldn’t win was the Singapore Grand Prix.

Red Bull Racing didn’t simply lose in Singapore; it was so off the pace that neither driver qualified inside the top 10, with Verstappen and Pérez scraping in for minor points at the end of Sunday’s race.

It was a baffling anomaly in what would have otherwise been a perfect season.

Now 12 months on, the spectre of that unusually dreadful weekend hangs over the defending title-winning team, which is hoping desperately that it’s done its homework right.

“I know that it’s not going to be our easiest weekend, just straight up,” Verstappen said. “Of course you analyse the race that you did last year. There were a few things that could have been done better; that’s what we’ll try to do this weekend.

“But I don’t expect it suddenly to be one of our strongest weekends.”

There are some reasons for hope, and this weekend will test whether they have any foundation in reality.

Pérez appears to have recaptured some of his mojo, leading the team in Azerbaijan in easily his best weekend since April.

The team has suggested it’s partly down to the Mexican rebuilding his confidence, having finally seen Verstappen begin to struggle with some of the car traits that have left him looking woefully uncompetitive for the best part of the last 16 months.

The Mexican has also suggested some engineers have apologised to him for not having believed his complaints about the car last year, when these problems were first baked into the car.

With Singapore another strong track for him, his rejuvenation might have arrived at just the right time to save Red Bull Racing some face.

That’s good in its own right, but regardless of how and why he’s rediscovered his form, we’ve seen enough from him over the last few years to expect him to, on average, be a few tenths behind the Dutchman.

It suggests the car could theoretically have been a contender in better circumstances.

“What we did in Baku already stabilised the car a bit more,” Verstappen said. “That was positive. Hopefully we can just build on that and see around here.”

Verstappen put his personal struggles in Baku down to a botched set-up gamble. He’ll be sure not to make the same mistake this weekend.

If he or Pérez can leave Singapore with a podium, it’ll be a massive boost that the team has got on top of its problems. Suffer again and questions over Red Bull Racing’s title defence will persist until the next race.

WHAT WAS THE FIA PRESIDENT THINKING?

When historians summarise the administration of FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the one word they won’t use is ‘boring’.

The FIA boss has never been far from controversy, particularly in Formula 1, where some believe he’s been too ready and willing to involve himself loudly where quiet diplomacy might be better used.

This week, ahead of the blue-ribband Singapore race, he’s waded in again, with the Emirati picking up on what he perceives to be an increase in salty language over team radio.

“We have to differentiate between our sport — motorsport — and rap music,” he told Autosport.

“We’re not rappers, you know. They say the F-word how many times per minute? We are not on that. That’s them and we are [us].

“Now, with the technology, everything is going live and everything is going to be recorded. At the end of the day, we have to study that to see: do we minimise what is being said publicly?

“Because imagine you are sitting with your children and watching the race and then someone is saying all of this dirty language.

“I mean, what would your children or grandchildren say? What would you teach them if that is your sport?”

His unusual invocation of rap music drew the ire of several drivers, with Hamilton claiming that they carried racial undertones.

“I don’t like how he’s expressed it,” said the seven-time champion said, per The Race. “Saying ‘rappers’ is very stereotypical.

“If you think about it, most rappers are black, so he really pointed it towards ‘we’re not like them’.

“I think that was the wrong choice of words. There’s a racial element there.”

Other drivers understandably objected to Ben Sulayem’s insistence that they clean their mouths out. Some declared it unreasonable given radio is direct from the cockpit, where they’re under physical and mental duress. Others have argued that the rawness of the language adds to the spectacle.

It’s interesting that this isn’t the first time Ben Sulayem has weighed into a debate about language.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and Ferrari principal Frédéric Vasseur both received bizarre official warnings from the FIA at the end of last season for not watching their language during a press conference at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Both dropped the F bomb — Vasseur to describe Carlos Sainz’s car being obliterated by loose drain cover and Wolff railing against the suggestion that the incident would leave F1 with a “black eye”.

Driver responsibility has also been a hobby horse of the Ben Sulayem administration, which controversially raised the maximum fine an F1 driver can receive to €1 million (A$1.64 million).

Drivers railed against the 300 per cent increase. Ben Sulayem justified it on the grounds of inflation, arguing that “the price of everything has gone up”.

While the team radio fracas is unlikely to come to much — the F1 broadcast team already censors swearing on the television feed — the situation has made clear that Ben Sulayem isn’t interested in shying away from his role at the top of global motorsport and will continue attempting to shape F1 in his image.

WHO WILL FILL THE LAST 2025 SEAT?

Daniel Ricciardo’s future is the biggest talking point in the Singapore paddock this weekend as Red Bull prepares to announce its decision on his 2025 contract — and perhaps on him competing in the rest of this year.

Ricciardo’s up-and-down season has endeared him to the hierarchy in the way he’d hoped he would, and despite coming close to usurping Pérez during the mid-season break, the Australian now looks like he’s on the outer, with Liam Lawson set to take his place sooner or later.

There does remain a question — albeit small and shrinking — about whether Red Bull Racing really will commit to Pérez, though. Does one decent race in Azerbaijan really make up for half a season of lost points?

The team has begun to come around to the idea that maybe the Mexican really was the canary in the coalmine for a problem deeply seated in its car that’s only now coming to the fore. With even Verstappen struggling, suddenly he looks like less of an urgent problem.

How he fares in Singapore, a track at which he’s always excelled, could be decisive for him and possibly Ricciardo too. At this point the Aussie will have to cling to any sliver of hops.

With Ricciardo’s RB seat an internal Red Bull affair, there’s only one other gig genuinely still up for grabs on the grid at Sauber.

The Swiss team is weighing up its options in what is suddenly a buyer’s market for the last-placed squad.

Incumbent Valtteri Bottas is reportedly close to inking a new contract, but it’s not yet a done deal.

The team is still considering whether to take a punt on youth to partner the evergreen Nico Hülkenberg.

Formula 2 championship leader and McLaren junior Gabriel Bortoleto would be at the top of that list. The Brazilian is backed by Fernando Alonso and highly rated, and winning the F2 championship would leave him unable to compete again. McLaren has said it won’t stand in his way from taking up an F1 drive elsewhere.

Sauber’s long-time reserve driver Théo Pourchaire has also been connected to the drive, though there hasn’t been much heat in him as an F1 prospect for several years.

But Williams rookie Franco Colapinto could yet haul himself into contention.

Colapinto is in the unusual situation of earning a mid-season call-up with no prospect of continuing at the team next year, with Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz already signed up.

The Argentine is impressing too. A single qualifying mistake in Monza separated him from a possible points finish, but he duly made up for it with a tremendous Q3 appearance and eighth-place finish in Azerbaijan.

It was doubly impressive for the fact he’d never been to Baku before.

If he can keep up that kind of form, he might yet be able to force his way into the reckoning for 2025.

Singapore will be perhaps his sternest test. It’s another track he’s never been to, but hot and humid Marina Bay is far more physically and mentally demanding.

Liam Lawson scored his maiden points here last year to cement himself as a future F1 driver.

Can Colapinto do the same?