Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri finished fourth and fifth at the Singapore Grand Prix, both passing Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari in the closing laps at Marina Bay to salvage points for the McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team in Round 17 of the 2026 season.

Max Verstappen claimed his second successive victory, with the result tightening the Constructors’ Championship battle for third place. Red Bull now trail McLaren by just seven points after closing the gap with recent upgrades.

Norris, who started from the third row, ran as high as second during a longer opening stint before pitting on Lap 33 for Medium tyres. He emerged fifth and ultimately held that position, though Kimi Antonelli passed him during his attempt to overtake Hamilton, denying Norris a podium. “I should have done a better job battling with Lewis,” Norris said. “It was inevitable I’d pass him at some point. I braked a bit late, and I could have still put a good move in, and he would have let me past because he seemed to brake way too late. But it was just a bit unnecessary for me.”

Piastri’s race was complicated by a slow puncture on his front right tyre that forced a second pit stop just eight laps after his first, switching him onto the Soft compound. Despite the setback, he charged through the field in the final stages and passed Hamilton at Turn 16 on the penultimate lap. “It’s fifth place, so there’s a cap on the excitement, but it certainly made it more exciting at the end,” Piastri said. “We looked okay, I would say, but we just didn’t have enough pace, really. I think Max and Charles were very quick, clearly, and we seemed a little step behind Kimi.”

The race featured several incidents that shaped the outcome. Franco Colapinto’s retirement briefly raised the prospect of a Safety Car pit stop window, but the Argentine driver cleared the circuit before one could be called. Lance Stroll’s clutch failure triggered a Virtual Safety Car, prompting Antonelli to pit and re-emerge between the two McLarens.

Norris was measured in his assessment of the team’s competitive position. “We’re still fighting for top four and almost for a podium, but we’re still a bit too far off at the moment. So, we have to just keep trying to upgrade the car,” he said. “At the moment, we’re fourth fastest, but we’re still back at the front in that top group, which is closer than we were at the beginning of the year. We can still fight pretty well.”

Both drivers now have a two-week break before the United States Grand Prix in Austin, the first of four consecutive races in the Americas.