Fernando Alonso highlights big Ferrari missed opportunity after running into

Fernando Alonso is convinced that Ferrari “should have won” the Singapore Grand Prix, with the SF-24 car faster than Lando Norris and McLaren at Marina Bay last weekend.

McLaren claimed a fourth victory in six races in Singapore as Norris dominated from pole position, extending the team’s lead over reigning champions Red Bull in the Constructors’ standings to 41 points with six rounds of the F1 2024 season remaining.

Fernando Alonso: Ferrari, not McLaren, ‘should have won’ Singapore GP
Norris’s margin of victory at Marina Bay fell just 1.9 seconds short of his triumph in the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, where he won by 22.8 seconds in the most dominant performance by any driver all season.

Norris’s routine win came after the expected challenge from McLaren’s main rivals failed to materialise with Ferrari, polesitters at the previous two races in Italy and Azerbaijan courtesy of Charles Leclerc, running into trouble in qualifying in Singapore.

Leclerc could only manage ninth on the grid after seeing his final lap of Q3 deleted, with team-mate Carlos Sainz starting 10th after crashing in the final part of qualifying.

Having claimed his best result sine June’s Canadian Grand Prix with sixth in Baku, Alonso produced another defiant drive to collect eighth place in Singapore, finishing two seconds behind Sainz at the chequered flag.

Speaking after the race, Alonso claimed that he extracted the maximum from the Aston Martin to finish so close to a Ferrari at Marina Bay.

Asked if eighth was the best result available, he said: “Absolutely.

“Behind the top-four teams, just in front of Checo [Sergio Perez] so normally it’s ninth and 10th available.

“Today, finishing eighth is better than our best dreams.

“Good points, but still one lap behind and not great pace. Difficult car to drive the whole weekend, so we are just lucky we got points, but it was possible to be P15 and have the same feeling.”