Mercedes baffled by Singapore win

George Russell and Toto Wolff both unable to explain where Singapore victory came from.

It was understandable that our post-qualifying headline referred to George Russell’s “surprise” pole position, elsewhere the word “shock” was much in use.

However, twenty-four hours later the Briton converted it into a win, having led the race for all but two brief laps after pitting.

It was a well-deserved and somewhat emphatic victory, with runner-up Max Verstappen more focussed on the cars behind than taking the fight to Mercedes, but nonetheless, like Saturday evening, it came as something as a surprise… even to the winner.

“It feels amazing, especially after what happened a couple of years ago,” said the Briton. “That was a bit of a missed opportunity, but we more than made up for it today.

“I’m just so grateful for the team,” he added. “They did an amazing job this weekend. We don’t really know where this performance came from, but I’m really, really happy.”

Happy, totally understandable… but also confused.

“If I was to make a list of all the races I thought we could win at this year, this would probably be right at the bottom,” he admitted. “We need to sit down on Monday and Tuesday to sort of understand why the performance was so good.

“Realistically, Lando looked incredibly fast,” he continued. “He was within a second of Max the whole race and around this circuit, that’s not easy.

“We’ll take the performance for today and celebrate it,” he smiled. “I won’t think too much about Austin yet. I just hope we can carry this through to the rest of the season.”

Team boss, Toto Wolff was equally at a loss to explain where the victory came from.

“You tell me,” he laughed. “Singapore was never a nice place for us in terms of car performance, and if you would have told me that we were dominating in the way we did today, I would not have believed it.

“These cars are just a surprise box,” he continued. “If you ask McLaren why the last three races haven’t gone at all, they would probably struggle for answers.

“And the same way, Max coming back and then lacking performance again today, and the same with the Ferraris oscillating between success and failure…

“It’s just that margins are so small in having the car in the right aerodynamic window, in extracting that maximum mechanical grip without killing the tyres, and the sweet spot of the Pirellis obviously,” he said.

“That doesn’t always correlate what you see in the virtual world, in the simulations, to what happens on the track. But here, from the get-go, the tyres, driver and car were just in sync and not to be beaten.”

Check out our Sunday gallery from Marina Bay here.