DHL FASTEST LAP AWARD

Daniel Ricciardo snatches DHL Fastest Lap from Lando Norris: A final flourish?

By clocking the DHL Fastest Lap on this occasion, Daniel Ricciardo did his former team Red Bull and his friend Max Verstappen another small service in Singapore. But was it by way of a parting shot, with his racing career about to come to a close?

In the run-up to Singapore, the rumors that RB could replace Ricciardo as early as the next race were gaining momentum. The reality of the threat he was facing became clear after Ricciardo’s emotional post-race interview: “I knew that this was possibly my last race. That’s why I tried to enjoy it.”

If so, it was not a particularly glorious farewell. Having booked P16 on the grid in a poor qualifying, Ricciardo’s strategy of starting on soft tires amounted to a desperate hope for an early safety car. This did not materialize, which meant that he then had to drive a much slower two-stop race in Singapore.

So, the team decided to give Ricciardo one last hurrah shortly before the end. They brought him back in, bolted on a set of soft tires and sent him out to chalk up the 17th DHL Fastest Lap of his career. With a time of 1:34.486, he denied the dominant race winner Lando Norris a potential first Grand Slam. More importantly, though, he deprived the McLaren driver and closest title challenger to Verstappen of the bonus point.

Ricciardo, who eventually finished in P18, didn’t get the extra point either. However, RB team boss Laurent Mekies refuted any suggestion that it might have been done as a favor to sister team Red Bull: “Given this may have been Daniel’s last race, we wanted to give him the chance to savor it and go out with the fastest lap.”