For the second weekend in a row, one of the more interesting technical nuances from the Singapore Grand Prix revolved around McLaren and its rear wing choice.

But rather than this being a controversial talking point like in Baku, as attention was grabbed by its ‘mini-DRS’, instead the fascinating element to last week was about it bucking the trend with its downforce levels.

While the rest of the field took the conventional approach of fitting its cars with their highest downforce selection, McLaren was alone in not doing it – it went a step down on downforce.

This was a decision that the team seemingly settled into early-on in the weekend too.

McLaren split its car from the off. Oscar Piastri went for the max downforce arrangement in FP1, before switching to the step down level that Lando Norris had run from the start.

As its opponents wrestled their machinery around the Singapore street track with high downforce arrangements similar to what would be installed at Monaco and Hungary (inset), McLaren bridged the gap between downforce levels with an updated beam wing arrangement.

The new beam wing arrangement is still a bi-plane layout, with the lower, more loaded element retained.

The upper more slat-like element was increased in size to improve the relationship between the two elements and help create a stronger connection between them, the diffuser and rear wing. 

The ‘mini-DRS’ controversy

McLaren MCL38 rear wing

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

McLaren’s rear wing was a big talking point heading into Singapore, with footage from the rear-facing onboard camera of Oscar Piastri’s MCL38 in Baku showing distortion in the slot gap between the mainplane and upper flap.

This opening up of the gap between wing elements would help reduce drag and increase straight-line speed.

Whilst McLaren is not the only team to be employing flexibility in its rear wing to reduce drag, the means by which McLaren were doing so was a new method from what we’ve seen in the past.

In this instance, there was a secondary effect, whereby the leading edge of the upper flap flexes upwards, which is most visible in the front corners of the flap (red arrow, above).

This ‘mini-DRS’, as it quickly became dubbed, was expected to provide a top speed boost when compared with its rivals – although just how much was not clear. 

The wing passed the FIA regulations with the static load tests but, following pressure from rivals, McLaren agreed with the governing body to make modifications to this low-downforce specification for when it potentially reappears at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Red Bull’s minor tweaks

Red Bull Racing RB20 technical detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

Red Bull has been on the backfoot of late, as the RB20 has failed to deliver the level of performance that had been anticipated.

Updates that arrived during the season have further narrowed the car’s working window.

And, whilst the team now seemingly understands where things went wrong for it in terms of the development cycle, the fixes won’t be available overnight.

Regardless of its long-term solutions, it also has to focus its efforts on improving the car on a race-by-race basis and as such, it modified its front brake assembly for the Singapore Grand Prix.

This was an effort to both help improve brake cooling and alter the transmission of heat between the brakes and tyres, via the wheel rim. 

This is the type of small detail change that we’ve seen teams make for a number of years but is less obvious with this generation of car. That is because the outermost brake drum must be sealed, rather than having the openings that many used for aerodynamic effect during previous regulatory eras.

In the case of this new arrangement on the RB20, the design of the inner basket has been altered to include a trench-like cutout, with a window around a portion of the brake disc, which also has a metal component, which may act as a heatsink.

The arrangement that’s being employed will reroute heat being generated by the brakes around the assembly and out the rear-facing duct that’s mounted on the inboard face of the brake duct fence.

Ferrari’s new front wing

Ferrari SF-24 front wing comparison

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

Meanwhile, there was a new front wing on the menu for Ferrari in Singapore, as it looked to further capitalise on the performance uplift that its recent floor updates have provided in the last few races. 

Originally scheduled for the United States Grand Prix and fast-tracked for Singapore, it is understood that Ferrari put more of its focus on the wing’s flexibility under load, with rivals McLaren and Mercedes having seemingly made significant gains having focused on its potential.

This has resulted in several alterations being made to the front wing’s architecture, with the change made to the outboard flap and endplate juncture perhaps the most prominent of these features. 

It has taken a very similar approach to McLaren here, as the MCL38’s wing sports a more aggressively dog-eared semi-detached flap design in order to help tune the vortex that’s spilled in that outer corner and had an impact on the wake generated by the wheel assembly thereafter.

The shape and distribution of the flaps has also been adjusted to better suit the aforementioned shift in outboard characteristics, whilst also taking into account how more flexion will have a bearing on its performance from both a downforce and drag perspective.

Notably, there’s also a change to the shape of the central section of the mainplane, with the depth and transitional shape of the drooped section amended.

Proceedings in Singapore were not quite as compelling compared to those in Azerbaijan a week ago. There was no battle for the lead, nor was there a real three-team battle at the front; instead, this was a championship big-picture race.

Lando Norris put the field to the sword, but Max Verstappen gamely mitigated the damage to his championship lead — and then said little about it afterwards as he staged an almost-silent protest during the official press conferences.

PLUS: How Norris shrugged off two touches with the wall to dominate in Singapore

But wait, there’s more! Red Bull’s presence on the podium came after a Friday night turnaround in fortunes thanks to Sebastien Buemi’s stint in the simulator, while Ferrari’s early pace seemed to descend significantly after the opening pair of practice sessions.

McLaren’s ‘mini-DRS’ story reached its crescendo, Mercedes struggled in the heat, and it also looked as though Daniel Ricciardo had completed his farewell tour to 18th (albeit with the fastest lap) as RB looks set to reinstate Liam Lawson to the seat.

Here are the key stories we picked up on during the Singapore Grand Prix weekend.

1. Norris’ mission ‘is still on’ after Verstappen-esque rout (Jake Boxall-Legge)

Norris and McLaren «took the piss» with their opening stint radio messages before romping to victory, according to Christian Horner

Photo by: Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images

A 20-second gap between first and second by the 25th lap rather evokes memories of most given races in 2023, when Verstappen happily cruised into the distance and built a variety of unassailable leads. Or Lewis Hamilton in the late 2010s. Or Michael Schumacher in the early 2000s.

Norris can do it too. The McLaren MCL38 had a very distinct pace advantage in Singapore, as team principal Andrea Stella reckoned that “in this [higher-downforce] configuration, I think it has the better aerodynamic efficiency across the grid”, but Norris still needed to make the most of the tools at his disposal. And, unlike his other pole position conversions of late, Norris nailed the start and held the lead into the first corner. He then kept it on lap one, and disappeared into the aether.

Race engineer Will Joseph asked Norris to build a five-second lead by “the mid-teens», and the Briton over-delivered in managing that by the end of lap 10. Five laps later, his advantage had doubled. There was scarcely anything that Verstappen could really do to stop himself from being on the receiving end of his usual party trick.

Of course, there were two moments with the wall that could have stifled Norris’ snowball on another day, but he managed to shake them off quite quickly rather than retreat within himself at the merest hint of contact.

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To win the title, Norris “simply” needs to pull six more of those out of the bag, maximise his points advantage to Verstappen, and try to win all three sprint races. How hard can that be?

2. Ferrari promised a challenge before qualifying disaster (Jake Boxall-Legge)

Leclerc’s race unravelled behind slower cars after a disappointing qualifying

Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images

Charles Leclerc was quickest in FP1, and under a hundredth slower than Norris in FP2. The long-run pace in that second session suggested that Ferrari might be onto something good once more, a week after Leclerc netted pole and challenged Oscar Piastri for victory in Azerbaijan. The early indications were that Leclerc might be Norris’ greatest challenger in Singapore.

But Ferrari’s pace seemed to evaporate under the heat of FP3. The team had partly anticipated this, expecting things to progress once more in qualifying; indeed, Leclerc was at the sharp end by the close of Q2, even if Red Bull had advanced in the order overnight.

Then came the turning point: Carlos Sainz lit up the rears as he prepared to open his first attempt at a hot lap in Q3, earning a one-way ticket into the Turn 17/18 barrier. This nixed Leclerc’s opening run, and the Monegasque’s subsequent effort after the red flag had disappeared opened while his tyres were too cold and went too deep onto the Turn 1 kerb.

His final time was only good enough for seventh, 0.004s shy of Nico Hulkenberg, but it was chalked off for track limits. Thus, Leclerc and Sainz were largely out of position on the fifth row of the grid, which rather constricted their efforts throughout the rest of the grand prix.

3. Why Max went mute in FIA press conferences (Jake Boxall-Legge)

Verstappen’s off-track fallout with the FIA dominated headlines

Photo by: Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images

Here’s a potted history of why Verstappen suddenly adopted a somewhat laconic approach to the FIA press conference on Saturday and Sunday. In the Thursday presser, Verstappen dropped an F-bomb. Per a recent directive in the FIA, swearing was going to be punished more harshly, and thus Verstappen was given the equivalent of community service.

The Dutchman believed that this was, in his words, “silly”. As such, he made a point of providing only curt answers to questions while sat on the press conference sofa. It was reminiscent of Marshawn Lynch’s 2015 Super Bowl media session, where he simply uttered the phrase “I’m just here so I don’t get fined”. “I know that I have to answer,” said Verstappen, in explanation of his malicious compliance. “But it doesn’t say how long you have to answer for.”

And Verstappen was genuinely aggrieved that the FIA had punished him so harshly for swearing, feeling that he had helped the governing body in the past voluntarily with other projects and that he was being singled out. To his credit, he was happy to field the media’s questions outside of the press conference room, where he spoke of his displeasure.

“I mean, these kinds of things definitely decide my future as well,” he admitted. “When you can’t be yourself, you have to deal with these kinds of silly things…I think now, I’m at a stage of my career that I don’t want to be dealing with this all the time. It’s really tiring.”

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In other Red Bull news, the team enjoyed a significant turnaround after a difficult Friday; overnight set-up work on the simulator got the team into a much better window with the tyres and Verstappen reported much better balance through the plethora of lower-speed corners at the track. It didn’t entirely work out on Sergio Perez’s side of the garage, but it’s been known for some time that the Mexican is much more sensitive to the RB20’s flaws.

4. McLaren’s ‘mini-DRS’ gets shut down (Jake Boxall-Legge)

McLaren’s innovative rear-wing solution was modified after a request by the FIA, despite passing tests

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

The upper rear wing element on the McLaren MCL38 had tongues wagging after the Baku race, as onboard footage of Oscar Piastri’s car showed the bottom corners of the wing creaking open very slightly on the 2.2-kilometre (1.37 mile) stretch along Neftchilar Avenue.

A little insight into how this works: the upper and lower elements are separated by what is known as a “slot gap”, which has a defined size. The slot gap breaks the wing up into two elements, allowing airflow to stay attached to a greater curvature and minimises the interruption to the amount of downforce created.

But on a long straight, you really don’t need that downforce. And, relative to the size of the long seafront stretch of road, the DRS zone is comparatively small. If the slot gap is opened slightly more, then the wing starts to stall; it no longer stays attached to the underside of the upper element, cutting the downforce and by association, the drag. It passed all static flex tests, but McLaren developed it to open at a given speed to dump more drag and push the acceleration up. This certainly helped Piastri keep ahead of Leclerc during the Azerbaijan race.

There were no formal protests against the wing design, but McLaren was told by the FIA to modify it so that it did not open up without DRS applied. This was not a feature of the higher-downforce Singapore wing, but it may prompt a change for races like Las Vegas – which features a comparatively long straight.

5. Mercedes’ «painful evening» with a hot Singapore circuit (James Newbold)

Neither Hamilton nor Russell attended post-race media duties after suffering from «overheating»

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar

The chirpy comments from Mercedes drivers on Saturday night about «night and day» set-up improvements that allowed Lewis Hamilton and George Russell to annex row two cut a sharp contrast to Sunday. Neither of the drivers were in a fit state to conduct usual post-race media engagements due to heat exhaustion after slipping to fourth and sixth place finishes.

After being usurped by Oscar Piastri, Russell complained over the radio of suffering from understeer and oversteer, but did at least keep Charles Leclerc at bay. Hamilton was forced into an early stop for hard tyres to ditch the softs he’d started with and couldn’t repel the Ferrari on his much older rubber, the four-time Singapore winner’s early predictions that «you’re killing me with this offset» proving well-founded.

Team boss Toto Wolff accepted that picking softs, which did not allow Hamilton to vault ahead of Max Verstappen off the line as had been hoped, «was the wrong decision» but was frank in his assessment that it proved academic.

«It doesn’t hide away from the fact that the car is too slow,» he said, having labelled Sunday «a really painful evening».

«We struggle at the moment at tracks that are hot and are tough on traction; here and Baku,» Wolff explained. «But this is no excuse. It is just at the moment not what we expect from ourselves, because if your quickest car is a minute behind the leader it is just difficult to accept.»

6. Ricciardo’s time looks over as he admits «this could be it» (Ewan Gale)

Has Ricciardo packed his bags and closed his career on F1?

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Rumours swirled ahead of the weekend that Daniel Ricciardo would be entering his final event as an F1 driver, with RB set to promote Liam Lawson for the United States Grand Prix onwards.

The Australian failed to make it through Q1 despite promising practice pace and, after struggling to make headway having started on softs in the grand prix, his team pitted him at the end of the race to set a fastest lap.

Speaking afterward, he told media that it wasn’t a «fairytale ending», the closest he came to confirming he would be bowing out of the championship. But in truth, other than the 2021 Italian Grand Prix victory with McLaren, there has been nothing fairytale-like about his time on the grid since switching from Red Bull to Renault for 2019.

His second chance having initially been dropped for 2023 was almost squandered before it began when he broke a bone in his hand at Zandvoort last year and despite glimpses of a return to form, he hasn’t kicked on sufficiently to warrant a continuation. No doubt his personality will be missed but, if this is the end of the road, there can’t be much to argue about.

7. Rookie race looks set to be on (Ewan Gale)

Will the rookies be lining up for a sprint post-season?

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

One of the most complained about issues in F1 at the moment is how to provide rookies and young drivers with experience in current cars, given the lack of testing compared to yesteryear.

To its credit, the championship has been proactive in trying to open doors for such opportunities — TPCs [Testing of Previous Cars] and the FP1 rookie sessions allowing F1 teams to put new blood behind the wheel for vital run time.

Other ideas have come and gone, such as wildcard entries — which are employed by the F1 Academy series with the same goal in mind — but the idea of giving rookies a race to compete in at the Abu Dhabi post-season test, rather than ambling around for kilometre after kilometre was floated by team bosses earlier this year and Autosport understands that the proposal will be green lit for the end of the year.

While Pirelli’s tyre testing will still take up much of the day’s focus, it is understood that the plan would be to hold a short qualifying session before the sprint — though finer details are yet to be finalised.

How much help this will give young drivers will only be seen when it actually happens, but the thought process, at least, is sound.

F1 has a month break before heading Stateside for the US GP

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images