Formula One Vault

PRIXVIEW – Singapore Grand Prix

Round eighteen brings F1 to eastern Asia and the city-state of Singapore for the sport’s original night race. Singapore, over the last eighteen years, has established itself as a staple and one of the most difficult physical and mentally demanding races of the season around the 3.062-mile circuit.

The climate in Singapore is hot and humid, which requires drivers to focus on the humid conditions, coupled with the corners, which place high physical stress causing them to lose as much as 3kg in body weight over the course of a race. Every race has been over a hundred minutes long and has featured at least one safety car, and it is a race of attrition.

Singapore was the first step towards the modern generation of street circuits. The wide sections allow for overtaking but it’s not as easy as we saw in Baku or Jeddah, where overtaking was easier. Though this circuit still requires drivers to be on the ball throughout the weekend, as they try to build confidence.

Many of the corner names were decided by public ballot, while the straights come from the road names. Turn One Sheares after Benjamin Henry Sheares, the second president of Singapore; Turn Seven was named Memorial due to its proximity to a Second World War civilian memorial, and Turn Ten was named Singapore Sling. The Singapore Sling was changed for the 2013 Grand Prix, and Turn Ten is now a flowing left-hander.

While Singapore is a modern street circuit, it in my view is somewhere in the middle between older-style street circuits like Albert Park and more modern circuits like Baku. You do get more overtaking than Monaco, but it is harder to overtake than Baku; it’s now a medium-speed street circuit when compared to Baku or Jeddah. The race here can be more difficult as everything needs to come together if you are going to challenge for victory.

The first Grand Prix was held in 1961, then called the Malaysian Grand Prix, as the city didn’t get its independence until 1965, with the first Grand Prix the following year. This was a non-championship formula Libre race held a short distance away. Albert Poon, triumphed in 1963 and 1965, although the 1964 car race was abandoned after five laps because of torrential rain. That year’s race was also marred by a marshal being killed when a Jaguar flew off the track and hit him.

Founder Garrie Cooper won in 1968, but it was New Zealander Graeme Lawrence who became the most successful driver in the history of the event with three successive wins from 1969 to 1971, which was passed by Sebastian Vettel in 2015, and Lewis Hamilton in 2018.

2008 was always going to be a historic milestone for the sport, the 800th world championship grand prix and the first to be held at night. However, the events of that night makes it one everyone would rather forget. Known as Crashgate, Renault conspired between team principal Flavio Briatore and engineering director Pat Symonds to get Nelson Piquet to deliberately crash to give Fernando Alonso an advantage.

Alonso was the only driver to have pitted for fuel, and he later went on to win the race. After Piquet, Jr. left Renault in August 2009, allegations surfaced that this crash had been deliberate, to give an advantage to Alonso. Renault was convicted of race fixing days before the 2009 race, and Piquet was given immunity for his evidence.

2009 saw Lewis  Hamilton take the first of four wins in Singapore, something Sebastian Vettel has also done too. Hamilton finished ahead of Timo Glock and Alonso, the only race of that season where neither Red Bull nor Brawn finished on the podium. Alonso would win again in 2010, after fending off Sebastian Vettel, and a collision between Mark Webber and Hamilton.

Alonso also took a second win in Marina Bay in 2010, after fending off Sebastian Vettel, and a collision between Mark Webber and Hamilton. Vettel would win from pole in 2011, from Button, Webber, Alonso and Hamilton, who finished in the top five with Webber and Alonso knocked out of the title race. Hamilton, meanwhile, kept his slim hopes alive despite a drive-through penalty.

2012 saw Hamilton take pole; however, despite leading most of the early part of the race a gearbox failure began to develop following his first stop, where he reported “funny feeling”, which then led to his retirement ten laps later. That allowed Vettel to take the lead, where the Red Bull remained until he took victory by just under nine seconds.

In 2013, Vettel would take his statistically most dominant victory of the season, the second half of that season would see the German win nine races in a row and his third successive win in Singapore. Max Verstappen broke that record in 2023. Singapore is one of the hardest races to win, some would say harder than Monaco.

The beginning of the hybrid era saw Mercedes dominant; however, it would hide a fundamental problem they would only discover in 2015. Hamilton took victory in 2014, but Vettel would take pole, going on to victory finishing almost a second and a half ahead of Ricciardo.

2017 saw the first wet race in Marina Bay which proved to define the outcome of the championship. Vettel collided with teammate Kimi Räikkönen and Max Verstappen at the start. That handed the championship to Hamilton as the German’s season started to fall apart. Going into that race, Mercedes’ woes in Singapore looked to continue.

The crash and restart allowed Hamilton to win the race from pole at the second restart, in what was the sport’s first wet night race. After the race, he insisted he knew victory was possible as soon as the umbrellas started going up in the Marina Bay stands shortly before the start.

Vettel once again lost out in 2018 after a strategy blunder left him unable to attack Hamilton at the end of the race. But the German would take his final career win in 2019 as he beat teammate Charles Leclerc using the undercut to finish two and a half seconds ahead. This annoyed Leclerc as he couldn’t convert his pace into victory despite taking pole.

After the Covid hiatus, in 2022 Sergio Perez took victory after overtaking Leclerc got a bad start off the line and then went on to control the race from then on. The Mexican repeated his good restart off the line then despite the pressure from Leclerc, he managed to open the gap and the VSC allowed him to make his stop without losing the lead.

Lando Norris brought his McLaren home fourth, finishing over half a minute ahead of his teammate Daniel Ricciardo. Both McLarens benefited from rare mistakes by both Hamilton and Verstappen, in separate incidents both got caught out and wrecked their tyres, with the Dutchman dropping behind Hamilton.

2023 saw Carlos Sainz take victory in a nail-biting five-way fight between himself, teammate Leclerc, Norris and the two Mercedes to win by under a second. Sainz had to fend off Norris and Russell in the closing laps; all three had a chance in the closing stages, Mercedes looking to be the fastest car in the latter stages, when trying to pass Norris, the Englishman clipped the wall on the penultimate lap, then went straight into the wall at Stanford and out of the race.

Race & Circuit Guide

Fast facts

• Red Bull has had more podium finishes here than any other team. They’ve scored top-three results 14 times in total. 2023 was the first time since 2009 that the team failed to finish on the podium in Singapore.
• Seven drivers have shared victories at the 15 Singapore Grands Prix held since 2008. Sebastian Vettel (2011-2013, 2015, 2019) has the most victories, with five. Lewis Hamilton (2009, 2014, 2017-2018) has won four times, Fernando Alonso twice (2008, 2010), and Nico Rosberg (2016), Sergio Perez (2022), Carlos Sainz (2023) and Lando Norris (2024) have each won once.
• The 2024 Singapore Grand Prix was the first race at Marina Bay Street Circuit in which there were no Safety Car deployments.
• The 2017 Singapore Grand Prix was the first night race to be held in wet conditions. The race was also wet in 2022, with the start having to be delayed by over an hour due to heavy rain and thunderstorms.

How McLaren win the constructors?

Seven Grands Prix and three Sprints remain this season, which means there are 346 points still remaining in the constructors. McLaren go into this weekend 333 points ahead of Mercedes, which means they need to outscore Mercedes by thirteen points this weekend, meaning if either Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri finish on the podium, they will retain the constructors.

Even if Mercedes scored a one-two, the fact that 303 points are still up for grabs after Singapore would result in the gap remaining too large to close. They need to outscore McLaren by 31 points to take the championship to Texas in a fortnight. Ferrari needs to out-score McLaren by 35 points if they are to remain in contention.

Event timetable

What happened in 2024?

FP1 was topped by Charles Leclerc with a 31.763 that put the Ferrari three-quarters of a tenth ahead of the McLaren of Lando Norris. Norris split the two Ferraris as he went just over a tenth faster than Carlos Sainz, in a session which proved to be trouble-free as the circuit rubbered in with Max Verstappen put his Red Bull fourth, going a tenth and a half behind Yuki Tsunoda, with the RB driver exactly half a second off the pace of Leclerc

In the representative FP2, it was roles reversed, Norris fastest with a 30.727 ahead of Leclerc by just under six hundredths ahead of Charles Leclerc. Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz going third but over half a second off. Norris and Leclerc appeared to be in a league of their own at the stunning street circuit, with the other Ferrari of Carlos Sainz six tenths off the pace in third.

FP3 was again topped by Norris with a 29.546 which put him nearly half a second faster than George Russell, while his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri was three tenths behind the Mercedes. Max Verstappen put his Red Bull fourth two hundredths ahead of both Ferrari’s.

Qualifying saw Norris beat Verstappen by two tenths to secure pole position with a 29.525, putting himself ahead of his championship rival. The final part of qualifying came down to a one-lap shoot-out for pole position, with half the top ten running out of time to set a lap time, after Carlos Sainz crashed at the start of his flying lap.

Norris took a dominating win after fending of Verstappen through the opening sequence of corners before taking a twenty-second win ahead of the Red Bull. It was the first race in Singapore not to feature a yellow flag or a safety car. The Englishman drove a controlled race with only one minor moment when he touched the wall on lap twenty-nine, damaging his front wing before damaging his right rear tyre on lap forty-five.

Piastri who was a further twenty-one seconds behind Verstappen in third. Piastri made a later pit stop from fifth which gave him the tyre advantage, allowing him to pass Charles Leclerc and both Mercedes. Leclerc fought his way from ninth with some impressive overtakes, finishing ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who overcut his incoming teammate

Championship Standings

What to watch for?

McLaren had a disastrous Baku on a weekend where they could have wrapped up the constructors, they needed 13 points on Ferrari. But it’s seen as an inevitability that they will seal a second consecutive title for the first time since 1990-91, they will have learned lessons but they will have to be careful following Oscar Piastri starting to crack after one of his worst weekends of the season. Piastri also carries a five-place grid penalty for a jump start.

They would like to do it, but it could be more difficult to overtake than in Baku, as it has shorter flat-out sections and tighter corners. Marina Bay was the first of the modern high-speed and downforce street circuits; however, this isn’t as easy as we see with more recent street circuits, where overtaking is a bit easier though it has improved with the changes made due to construction work between what was Turn Sixteen-Nineteen, which has made the old Twenty (now Sixteen) a good overtaking opportunity.

This race is sometimes teen as more difficult than Monaco, given the heat and humidity we have this can lead to lapses in focus and apart from last year, every race has featured at least one safety car. The barriers aren’t that far away and as always accidents in both qualifying and the race can lead to safety cars and VSCs, red flags in qualifying, teams need to be on it as positions can be won and lost by timings and pit stops.

Singapore is one of the hardest races of the season, not just for drivers but for teams, because of the humidity and the amount of focus the drivers need to keep it on track as the walls are never far away. This can lead to accidents in both qualifying and the race so being able to react and take advantage is key.

Red Bull look to be stronger on street circuits, though last time out, Max Verstappen was thereabouts with performance compared to a year ago when they struggled at these kinds of circuit. You can never count Verstappen out as he has throughout the season, either capitalised on McLaren’s difficulties and I think he will be on it again this weekend.

This could again create opportunities for the midfield teams to score points, as always important at the business end of the season and we know both how important it is in terms of prize money as it is very tight between the bottom six teams.

2023 vs 2024 Race Data

2024 Lap time comparison

Tyres