Formula One Vault

PRIXVIEW – Singapore Grand Prix

Round eighteen brings F1 back to Southeast Asia and the city-state of Singapore for the final race before the autumn break. The 3.062-mile circuit held the sport’s first night race in 2008 taking place on the streets around Marina Bay, but has been described as even more difficult to negotiate thanks to heat and humidity.

Lewis Hamilton commented 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. It’s similar but at the same time different to Monaco as it’s located on the harbourside but is wider, its also wider and faster making the lap times roughly five seconds fastest.

The climate in Singapore is hot and humid which 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 a race of attrition.

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 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 5 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, but that was passed by Sebastian Vettel in 2015, and Lewis Hamilton in 2018.

The 2008 race was always going to be a historic milestone for the sport, the 800^th world championship grand prix and the first to be held at night. But the events, known as Crashgate, of that night continue to raise questions and cause controversy about its impact on that year’s championship, 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 was convicted of race fixing days before the 2009 race, Piquet was given immunity for his evidence.

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 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 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 last season, can he make it eleven, 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 30. 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 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.

As I wrote at the time, it was not the race we expected but we may look back on this race in a decade 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.

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. Which annoyed Leclerc as he couldn’t convert his pace into victory despite taking pole.

Following a two-year hiatus caused by Covid, Sergio Perez took victory in 2022 after 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.

Race & Circuit Guide

Fast facts

• Few race tracks 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.
• No driver has recorded more than three retirements at Marina Bay Circuit – though there are plenty of drivers who have retired here three times. Among them are Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso.
• Frequent Safety Car periods, it’s not unusual for the Singapore Grand Prix to run to the two-hour limit. Five races here have been won in a time of over two hours.
• Red Bull have 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.

Event timetable

What happened in 2023?

Carlos Sainz beat George Russell by seven hundredths to take pole,  the Ferrari driver pulled out his best lap at the end of the session to go seven hundredths faster than Charles Leclerc, before being pipped by the Spaniard. Lewis Hamilton was fifth, but he had been off Russell’s pace for much of the weekend and said he was “struggling with the balance” in qualifying, both Red Bull’s were knocked out in Q2.

Sainz won 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.

For once Ferrari got everything right, fending off both Mercedes and Norris in the final quarter of the race. Sainz then used his former teammate as a defender to protect his lead from Russell and Hamilton. However, Leclerc really lost his chance of victory when the first safety car came out forcing him into an early stop.

Russell also crashed in the closing stages moving  Hamilton into third, the seven-time world champion finishing the race comfortably ahead of Leclerc. The second Ferrari was not able to join the titanic fight in the closing stages for victory, Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren covered by just over a second. In the closing five laps, the top three with five laps to go were covered by two and a half seconds. In the final laps Russell and Norris closed up to Sainz, but the Ferrari driver cleverly allowed Norris to close back to within DRS range again to help his defence, and as Russell attempted an attack on the final lap, he clipped the wall at Turn 10 to crash out.

Red Bull, who had won every race this season, had their most difficult weekend of the season, as the team looked off the pace all weekend with Verstappen finishing the race three seconds behind Leclerc.

What to watch for?

Singapore is another high-speed street circuit, and we saw a difficult weekend for both Max Verstappen and Lando Norris in Baku. The big thing I feel this weekend is which one bounces back the strongest and based on current form, and his teammate Oscar Piastri taking victory last weekend. I think he is going to play a bigger role than Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez as we saw McLaren took the lead of the constructors.

Baku showed how close it can be between the top four teams but we have seen them all have bad weekends last weekend that was Norris. Though the race was brilliant for him coming through to fourth he cannot afford this kind of mistakes, it’s very tight and he is lucky that Verstappen isn’t as strong and Red Bull isn’t as dominant as they have been in recent months.

Mercedes and Ferrari are going to have an important role in these final six races as they can challenge when the top two aren’t as strong. Ferrari, I feel has a better car but there are still the odd slip-up, but they have solved their biggest issues with strategy and tyre wear.

This circuit is slightly different to Baku, while I think it’s a good guide for this weekend it was the first of the new breed of street circuit which makes it more difficult to overtake than in Baku but not as difficult as say Monaco. As we saw in Baku with Norris, qualifying can be important as accidents and track evolution can catch drivers and teams out.

It’s about the drivers building into the weekend as with any street circuit the track will get faster and faster as the rubber goes down through practice and qualifying, but the banker is key. Street circuits in a season where we have really two groups, the top four and the rest, there could be opportunities for surprises from the midfield.

Singapore is one of the hardest races of the season, not just for drivers but for teams because of 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.

2023 vs 2022 Race Data

2023 Lap time comparison

Tyres