Singapore Grand Prix winner George Russell says he ‘feels ready to fight for a championship’

Russell said he believed Singapore had been “probably my most dominant weekend” but hesitated to categorise it as his best win, saying last year’s victory in Las Vegas was “pretty cool”.

He also said that winning in Singapore had been “so unexpected” – Mercedes have had a difficult run of races and their second place in the constructors’ championship was coming under threat.

He said: “We need to sit down tomorrow and Tuesday to sort of understand why the performance was so good.”

Russell won pole by 0.182 seconds from Verstappen, although the Dutchman felt he would have been in contention to beat his time if he had not run into dirty air from Lando Norris’ McLaren on his final lap and slid wide at the final chicane.

Russell’s drive to victory was helped by Verstappen’s choice to run soft tyres at the start of the race.

Once Russell kept the lead at the first corner, it meant Verstappen lacked the pace to challenge him. And he held back Norris’ McLaren, which looked to have the pace to challenge Russell, for the rest of the race.

“Realistically, Lando looked incredibly fast,” Russell said. “He was within a second of Max the whole race. And around this circuit, that’s not easy. So, we’ll take the performance for today, celebrate it, and I won’t think too much about (the next race in) Austin yet.”