Lewis Hamilton and George Russell suffered Singapore GP 'heatstroke', Mercedes confirm

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell both failed to fulfil their media duties after the Singapore Grand Prix upon the advice of Mercedes doctors after finishing sixth and fourth respectively

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell both suffered from "borderline heatstroke" following the Singapore Grand Prix.

As usual, Formula 1's original night race was run in intensely humid conditions despite the fact the sun had set in the Asian city state. And the Mercedes drivers were among the worst affected and didn't carry out their post-race media duties on medical grounds.

A spokesperson for the team said: "Unfortunately neither George or Lewis will be attending the media pen this evening as they recover from the exertions of this evening's race."

Hamilton had started the race first but his strategy didn't work out and he fell to sixth. He was beaten by team-mate Russell, who had started further back but rose to fourth, and team boss Toto Wolff apologised to the seven-time F1 champion for their poor tyre tactics.

While neither driver spoke directly to reporters, Mercedes did release quotes from both. Hamilton said: "It's hard to describe the range of emotions you feel when we have a difficult race like that. This year continues to be a testing one for everyone, but we are all pushing as hard as we can.

"We don't always get things right and that was the case today with our strategy. We all head into the weekend, and every decision we take, with the right intentions and sometimes it doesn't work out. It can be frustrating, but we are all in this together."

And Russell added: "After a very difficult Friday, we would have likely taken P4 in the Grand Prix. Our pace in qualifying however made us believe we could achieve more. Today was no doubt a difficult race for us, both challenging in terms of our pace but also physically.

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"The McLarens were very impressive and in another league to us, whilst Max [Verstappen] had the legs on us. We were able to hold off the Ferrari of Charles [Leclerc] in the closing stages, so it was very much an evening of damage limitation. Given the pace of the car, that was the very best we could have achieved."

Lando Norris won the race, his third victory of the season, and closed the gap to Verstappen at the top of the drivers' standings. But he remains 52 points adrift of the Dutchman and admitted he will be powerless to stop his rival if Red Bull keep finishing second behind him.

The McLaren driver said: "We're doing our best, and so are they. I still have a lot of points I've got to catch up and it's not going to be easy to do it. It's against Red Bull and it's against Max, the most dominant pairing you've ever seen in Formula 1, from last year. And that's not necessarily changed in terms of... It's the same team and it's the same driver. So I have some of the toughest competition that Formula 1 has ever seen in the sport."