During the summer break, most people were adamant that the drivers' championship fight was an exclusive battle between the two McLaren drivers.
But Max Verstappen has won the last two events, in dominant fashion, and has cut his points deficit to just 69 points, to championship leader Oscar Piastri.
In reality, that is still a significant points cushion to fight back from but, as we learn time and time again, you can never count Max Verstappen out. You also cannot count his Red Bull team out either, who seem to have found performance from the floor upgrade that they brought to last month's Italian Grand Prix.
McLaren's team principal, Andrea Stella, told formula1.com of how wary he is of the current world champion, he said, during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend: "We're talking about Max Verstappen, we're talking about Red Bull. We have already seen in Monza that they improved.
"They seem to have made an improvement with their car, because the way they won Monza was something more for what was our assessment than simply a car that adapts well at low drag.
"They were fast in the corners, medium-speed and low-speed corners, fast in the straights, and we know that Max, when he has a competitive car, can deliver strong weekends."
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Why Singapore is significant
Although different in layout and characteristics, both the Monza and Baku City Street Circuit, where Verstappen converted pole into the win, were underpinned by a low-drag set up demand that the RB21 warms to.
Its trade-off between downforce and drag means that when the downforce is cut, for circuits with long straights, the car either gets closer to the benchmark, or becomes it.
The near-five-kilometre-long Singapore track, however, is among the highest downforce tracks of the season and has the sort of characteristics which the Red Bull car detests. Slow and medium speed corners, some of which go on for a while.
Couple that with the fact that Verstappen has never won at Singapore, mainly because of how the track takes the car out of its sweet-spot, being competitive this weekend may just be a huge statement that he is not out of the title battle just yet.
If the RB21 is quick at Marina Bay, then it secures confidence that it is globally quicker and more adaptive than it was earlier in 2025, giving the Dutch driver a genuinely possible shot at the drivers' championship.
It would not certainly confirm this, given that upcoming tracks (like the Circuit of the Americas) should favour the McLaren over the Red Bull, because of the long-radius turns, where the RB21's balance limitations are at its most pronounced.
But given that the high-downforce tracks, like Monaco and Hungary, are where the Red Bull has been at its weakest; a competitive pace at a similar track layout may send more alarm bells to team Woking.