Formula One Vault

PRIXVIEW – Singapore Grand Prix

Round fifteen sees F1 head to East Asia and the city-state of Singapore, since 2008 the Marina Bay area has been the home of the sport’s original night race. Sometimes described as the Monaco of the east, the 3.062 mile circuit rounds its way through the Downtown Core (Turns 4 to 19) and Kallang (Turns 1 to 3).

It’s similar but at the same time different to Monaco as its located on the harbourside but is wider and this year is estimated to be around twenty seconds faster because of a temporary redesign between Turn 15 and 17, due to building work on one of the purpose-built sections along the Esplanade.

This is expected to result in a lap which is twenty seconds faster creating a much faster lap while the races have been increased to sixty-three laps, the race time is expected to be shorter around an hour and a half unlike previous editions usually lasting until the two hours time limit. If that is true Singapore wouldn’t be the longest in terms of time.

Singapore’s layout and climate makes it one of the most demanding circuits on the calendar, with Lewis Hamilton commenting that it was twice as hard to negotiate as  Monaco and unexpectedly physical, requiring double the amount of energy over a single lap as compared to the Monaco circuit.

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

Singapore is unique, it the only city in the world to host two national Grand Prix, originally part of Malaysia it first held a non-championship Grand Prix in 1961. The circuit at nearby Thompson Road was three miles long and won by Aston Martin, the idea of the race was the same to promote the city.

Malaysian Federation the Formula Libre and Motorcycle races were both non-championship. While the Malaysian Grand Prix would return in 1999, the success of the race in Singapore would lead to the race being dropped in 2017, citing that the success of Marina Bay

The event was discontinued after 1973 and a variety of reasons have been suggested, including an increase in traffic, the very high danger and the unsuitability of the track for racing, the inconvenience of having to close roads for the event and fatal accidents during the 1972 and 1973 races.

The climate in Singapore is hot and humid this requires drivers to focus and the humid conditions, coupled with the corners places 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 is race of attrition.

The first race in 2008 has recently returned to the headlines, mired in controversy because of the Crashgate scandal. Renault, now Alpine, management Flavio Biratore and chief engineer Pat Symonds conspired with Nelson Piquet to cause a deliberate 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 were convicted of race fixing days before the 2009 race, Piquet was given immunity for his evidence.

Recent comments by Bernie Ecclestone, saying Nelson Piquet Sr told him that Piquet Jr “had been asked by the team to deliberately drive into the wall at a certain point in time in order to trigger a safety car phase and help his team-mate, Alonso. We decided not to do anything for the time being. We wanted to protect the sport and save it from a huge scandal.”

At the time Piquet Jr. initially characterised the crash as “a simple mistake”. But there remains so many unanswered questions about what happened that night many of which may never be answered.

Massa has since sued the FIA and F1 for damages, claiming that failure to stop the crash cost him the 2008 World Championship and should be voided. But Ecclestone says  he could not remember saying the key quotes attributed to him.

2009 saw Lewis Hamilton take the first of four wins in Singapore something Sebastian Vettel has done too. Hamilton finished ahead of Timo Glock and Alonso, the only race of that season where neither Red Bull or Brawn finished on the podium. Alonso would win again 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.

The following season the McLaren driver, in what was his final race before announcing his departure to Mercedes at the end of 2012, took pole alongside Pastor Maldonado. But the Englishman led most of the early race before retiring with a gearbox failure, Vettel took the lead and victory.

2013 Vettel would take his statistically most dominant victory in 2013, 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 at the last race, can he make it eleven, but Singapore is one of the hardest races to win some would say harder than Monaco.

Mercedes would dominate the early hybrid era, however, in 2015 it would emerge that dominance had been masking several difficulties with overheating and under pressure they were losing places to Ferrari. Also, Hamilton reported a loss of power to his crew. He subsequently lost positions rapidly, dropping back to ninth by lap 28, eventually retiring on lap thirty. Vettel took the victory.

2017 saw the first wet race in Marina Bay proving 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 sports 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.

As I wrote at the time, it not the race we expected but we may look back on this race in a decade’s time as the championship swung decisively towards Hamilton. Vettel’s season would implode from that race onward allowing Hamilton to ultimately to win the championship in 2017.

It was the same story in 2018, with Vettel losing out this time on strategy as Ferrari put him on ultrasoft tyres leaving him unable attack towards the end of the race. On the first lap the two Force India cars collided with Esteban Ocon ending up in the wall after hitting his teammate Perez, bringing out the Safety Car.

Vettel would take his final career win, unless he comes back, in 2019, ahead of Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, the only time that a team has finished one-two at Marina Bay. That race also saw Alfa Romeo lead a race for the first time since Spa 1983, and Ferraris’s first one-two since Budapest 2017.

Race & Circuit Guide

2018-22 configuration

Fast facts

• The circuit holds a unique record of having at least one safety car appearance in every world championship race to date. There has been a total of twenty-two safety car deployments in twelve races.
• Pole position is vital in Singapore. Seven of the nine races have been won from pole. It has, however, proved possible to make up places on the Marina Bay Street Circuit
• There are few race tracks that take in so many landmarks and tourist attractions. The Marina Bay start/finish straight is situated just by the Singapore Flyer, while the cars fly past City Hall, Supreme Court, and Parliament, Merlion Park, Esplanade Drive and over the Andersen Bridge.

Event timetable

What happened in 2022?

Charles Leclerc took back-to-back poles in Singapore after beating Sergio Perez by three hundredths. Max Verstappen’s lap looked good enough to challenge for pole, but he will start from eighth. It looks as if the world champion may have used too much fuel on his out lap and wouldn’t have completed the lap with enough fuel for scrutineering.

Leclerc’s ninth pole of the season puts him one away from clinching the pole trophy for 2022, however that’s little consolation after his title hopes were dashed by Ferrari’s collective errors this season. Lewis Hamilton was third the first time he had managed to qualify in the top three all season.

Perez went on to win the race after Leclerc got a bad start off the line and then went onto 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.

Those mistakes happened during a stop-start phase between lap eight and twenty-seven, caused by Guanyu Zhou and Alex Albon crashing into the barriers with the two Alpine’s of Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon retiring with power unit failures.

Race Result – 1) S. Perez, Red Bull, 02:02:19.258 | 2) C. Leclerc, Ferrari, +00:07.595| 3) C. Sainz, Ferrari, +00:15.305

What to watch for?

Having dominated the European season, Max Verstappen can he extend his run of results and can Red Bull take another win in Singapore? Red Bull have a car which in the hands of the Dutchman has been so dominant and nothing has been able to stop him. Every circuit has been strong for Red Bull, but I feel Singapore is a more difficult race to win.

Every weekend it changed who are the closet challengers, changing between Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston Martin and more recently Alpine. This will become clear in FP2, that’s the most important session almost like a sprint weekend in Singapore there is only on reprehensive in the night session. Teams will want to maximise running in FP2 because that’s when qualifying and the race are.

This is a street circuit, yes but it’s a race which is one of the most physically and mentally demanding of the season because of the humidity. The circuit requires a lot of concertation and in terms of time it’s the longest race of the season, we often see safety cars leading in turn to multiple stops.

There are opportunities to overtake as this isn’t a narrow circuit, but drivers will need to take risks when overtaking, it should be easier with the regulation changes. We are expecting a faster race time and overall lap time this year because the section between what was Turn Sixteen and Nineteen has been removed due to building work.

Behind Red Bull, we know its very difficult to read as we have said all season, Mercedes I think despite historic difficulties here have been stronger at these medium-speed circuit. Overtaking I would describe as medium there are opportunities but not without risks.

There will be based on statistics a safety car and/or virtual safety car at some point, this means reacting and the timing of pit stops are key in this race. That can make a huge difference between gaining and losing track position, which can be very important given the difficulty when timing stops.

This is a hard race to win in theory but even harder for the midfield teams this year given it is so competitive behind Red Bull. We have gone into every weekend not knowing the competitive order behind Red Bull.

2022 vs 2019 Race Data

2022 Lap time comparison

Tyres