Outside Line: A dominant Verstappen-style performance by Norris

Although achieved very differently, as a McLaren fan, I am super amazed at what Andrea Stella and Zak Brown have managed to do with our team. But this is not a McLaren fanboy piece. This is acknowledging what we saw from Norris at the Marina Bay Street circuit this past weekend.

Fastest in FP2 on Friday. He owned day one. He then owned Qualifying, and then Norris owned the race. When I say "owned" he was on another planet. In Qualifying he was 0.20s faster than Red Bull's Max Verstappen who was second best. Piastri was 0.43s down on his teammate. That was a big, big lap the Briton strung together.

In the race, Norris seems to have ditched his Achilles heel. In Singapore from P1 on the grid, he got away magnificently, as most did. Only Piastri stumbled a little bit, but by the end of the lap, the top seven were where they were when they started.

Norris leading, he started pulling a small gap to get out of DRS. Verstappen seemed to have pegged the gap to around 1.5s. Until he got the call, Norris that is to step on it. Could he build a five-second gap?

And boy, he built a gap. It just just got wider and wider as he went faster and faster. At one point he was easily a second faster than anyone else on track. That Norris didn't get the fastest lap was because that honour went to Daniel Ricciardo who might've been racing his final Grand Prix. VCARB bolted on fresh tyres to do the deed

Such was his race pace, the McLaren driver might've won the race by double the 21 seconds the result sheet showed he wanted. Granted he had some heart-in-mouth moments but crucially never binned it, suggesting that he should maybe temper his aggressiveness, especially when in such a commanding lead and so in harmony with his car.

When a jubilant team CEO Brown reaffirmed, after the victory for Norris and P3 for Piastri, that McLaren has the best driver pairing of Formula 1, it's hard to argue with him. Had the Australian not fluffed his lines in Qualifying, causing him to start P5, it might've been a Papaya one-two in Sunday.

Again, with regard to Piastri. After mesmerising everybody with his performance in Baku, it would have stung Norris most of all. Beating your teammate is rule number one. But in the short time between these past two race weekends, he reset, rebooted, reloaded and fired back in the best way possible.

He dominated the 15th edition of the Singapore Grand Prix on Saturday qualifying and on Sunday's race. But more importantly (for those who know) giving his prodigious teammate Piastri something to think about too.

As for the 2024 F1 World Championship standings, the numbers are not kind for Norris, but Fate might decide to deny Verstappen his fourth title and grant the Englishman his first.

Who knows? This is Formula 1 after all, the maths says Norris has to score around 10 points (8.7 to be precise) more than leader Verstappen at the remaining six Grand Prix weekends, three of which feature Sprint Races with even more points on offer. Which means this one could go down to the wire.

If Norris should do the hitherto unthinkable, claim the 2024 F1 crown, we can look back on the Singapore Grand Prix as the night in which the 26-year-old rose to another level, was on another planet, and trigger what would be one of the sport's most remarkable title chases and turnaround. Watch this space!