Welcome to the Singapore Grand Prix – 2023
Perez accepts personal apology from Marko
Sergio Perez says he has accepted a personal apology from Helmut Marko over comments he made about him. Marko alluded to his “South American” heritage when comparing him to Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel, suggesting that he wasn’t as focused as the team’s two world champions.
That theory has been debunked by many who pointed to five time champion Juan Manwell Fangio and three times champions Ayrton Senna and Nelson Piquet Sr.
Marko had already issued a public apology for the words he spoke on Red Bull’s own ServusTV channel after the Italian GP, but Perez said ahead of the Singapore GP that they had also met in private.
Perez said, “I had a private conversation with him. He did apologise. And that to me was the main thing. And yeah, basically, we move on. I have a personal relationship with him. And I think you can always have those feelings when you see that sort of stuff.”
“Knowing the person helps a lot, because I know he doesn’t mean it that way. And I took his apology, because I know Helmut from the personal relationship that we have that he doesn’t mean it that way.”
Perez insisted that he wasn’t offended by Marko’s comments, suggesting they had been misinterpreted. Adding “I didn’t get offended at all personally. Let’s say if those comments were from a different perspective or so on, I would have to take them differently. But to me, it’s just how things are, and I didn’t take them personally.”
Verstappen criticises Wolff comments on record winning streak
Max Verstappen has shrugged off Toto Wolff’s dismissive comments about his record winning streak and suggested the Mercedes team principal spends too much time talking about Red Bull.
Verstappen looks likely to take his third championship within the next month having won the last ten Grand Prix and two sprints. Speaking after Verstappen’s win in Monza, Wolff said the streak would not be “important” for him and is “for Wikipedia”. That probably references Verstappen’s being not interested in records.
The Dutchman said ahead of this weekends race, “No, I’m not disappointed in that. I mean they had a pretty s*** race, so probably he was still p***** off with their performance.”
Wolff’s formerly dominant Mercedes team, who won eight successive constructors’ titles between 2014 and 2021, have struggled since the introduction of new design regulations at the start of the 2022 season.
Mercedes are second in the constructors’ standings, but with George Russell and Lewis Hamilton only managing fifth and sixth respectively in Monza, Red Bull are already in a position to seal the title this weekend in Singapore.
The bitterness of the 2021 season continues to see no love lost between Wolff and Hamilton given the run of form Red Bull has had this season.
Looking ahead to this weekend, the Dutchman has warned that Singapore’s spectacular street circuit could provide his team with perhaps their biggest challenge of the remaining eight Grands Prix.
he said, “I think we just are not as competitive as at other tracks. I think the street circuits are a little bit tougher for our car. I still think that we can do a good job, but it will be very tight.”
Ricciardo back but off track
Daniel Ricciardo will attend this weekends Singapore Grand Prix, but only to work with AlphaTauri in an engineering capacity as he continues his recovery from a broken hand. The Australian drivers return to the sport was derailed when in FP2 at. Zandvoort he crashed at Hugenholtz.
He underwent surgery on his injury two days later as he was replaced for the event at Zandvoort by Red Bull junior driver and 2023 Super Formula title contender Liam Lawson.
Lawson continued to deputise in Ricciardo’s place a week later at the Italian GP, the scene of Ricciardo’s most recent F1 victory back in 2021 when racing for McLaren. It has been suggested that he could return as soon as Lusail at the start of October due to the time needed in such a recovery process.
Ahead of this weekend’s Singapore race, AlphaTauri’s official pre-event media preview confirmed that Ricciardo “will be present with the team in Singapore only for engineering purposes”. the team gave no mention of Ricciardo’s plans for the Japanese GP next week.
in the same press release, Lawson, who finished. eleventh last time out at Monza having pushed team-mate Yuki Tsunoda close in qualifying too, said he “definitely felt more comfortable in Monza than in Zandvoort, even if there’s still a lot to learn”.
He added: “When you get more comfortable in these kinds of cars, it can make quite a big difference. Having done two races now, I’m also getting a better understanding of the difference between the tyre compounds, which is so important. I’d say Monza was pretty successful, even if it was disappointing to finish so close to the points.
“I think if I had had a better start, perhaps things could have been different, but it’s something that I will learn from, and I’m just excited moving forward.
Alfa Romeo confirms 2024 line up
Alfa Romeo has confirmed an unchanged line-up for 2024 with Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou. While Bottas staying with the team was certain, their had in recent weeks been questions about Zhou’s funding to continue next year.
However, the Chinese driver has now been signed for a third year with the team, which is expected to revert to the Sauber identity for the next two years, ahead of the full transition to the Audi name in 2026. Current FIA F2 championship leader Theo Pourchaire will also remain in his reserve and simulator driving role.
Defacto team principal Alessandro Alunni Bravi said, “the decision to continue our journey with our driver line-up unchanged is testament to the investment we have made in our project. Nothing in F1 changes overnight, and we have taken a conscious decision to focus on stability and to keep building our team up together as we embark on an important period of transition.”
“Valtteri and Zhou are drivers of known talent and skill, and they work really well together. They are well-matched and can push each other. Valtteri has taken a real leader’s role within the team, pushing us all to give our best. Zhou has made impressive steps forward in the last two years and we expect him to continue on this trajectory in 2024.”
Zhou confirmation means that he will finally get a chance to race in his home country next year, the last four Chinese Grands Prix have been cancelled due to Covid restrictions.
He added “I have been working extremely hard since day one and there is an incredible level of motivation to keep doing so every day forward. My relationship with Valtteri is really good, and we are working closely together and with the team to push everyone forward.”
“I am also very excited about the opportunity to finally race with my team in China, in front of my home crowd. It will be a great moment and I’m proud to be able to share it with all those who have supported me.”
Talking Points Singapore
Round seventeen brings F1 to Singapore with one question can Max Verstappen look for another win. However, the night race the first since Jeddah in mid-March and the first proper street circuit since Monaco in May, are set to test the teams with their set-up and potentially bring some unpredictability into the mix.
One of the talking points is the re-routing of the final sector replacing the four sllow corners and chicane at what was Turns Eighteen to Twenty-Two, with a longer straight between fifteen and what was twenty-two. It’s expected to reduce lap times, be kinder on tyres and the effects of this on the rest of the lap could make old data of limited use.
Teams will have to be quick to work out how to get up to speed, and with thunderstorms predicted through the day on Sunday – albeit lessening by race start – there could be some opportunities for upsets. Last time that happens both Ferrari’s and Max Verstappen crashed out at Shears (Turn One).
Carlos Sainz took pole for Ferrari at the last race, in Monza, but it is his team-mate, Charles Leclerc, who has actually been on pole in Singapore in F1’s last two visits in 2019 and 2022. Singapore is a high downforce circuit, in budapesst it was Lewis Hamilton who took pole position.
Out of the rest of the field, McLarens was strong in Hungary, qualifying third and fourth with Norris actually topping the times in Q2, and after a difficult recent run, they will be looking to bounce back.
Sergio Perez won last years race,, in rare conditions make it difficult to follow form from that event, particularly given the changes in the circuit for this year could also make a difference. But with Verstappen dominating the European season, plus Miami and Montreal, its hard to predict anything other than a Verstappen victory. However, his run must surely stop at some point.
The battle behind has in recent races turned into a two horse race for second in the. constructors between Ferrari and Mercedes, while Aston Marrtin looks to play catch up with the upgrades.
Albon was sixth at the last race in Monza, but his Williams favours high-speed circuits – all his points have come on that type of track. Singapore is not one of those, but the new straight may help and Albon’s performance in Hungary suggests he can still deliver at higher downforce.
In the thirteen races their has been twenty-three safety cars, with one in every Grand Prix since 2008. Last year’s rain-affected race saw six retirements, with three in 2019, one in 2018, and eight in the rain-hit 2017 race. The odds of less than 17.5 classified finishers are 11/25 while more than 17.5 finishers is at 8/5.
“Exciting” upgrades for Norris
Lando Norris will have use of an “exciting” McLaren upgrade at this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix which is aimed at specifically addressing the cars weakness in slow corners. The team has pushed hard to get this upgrades ready for Singapore, but has only produced enough parts for one car to have the entire range of new elements.
One of the upgrades was trailed at Zandvoort, but the full package will be unveiled on Friday afternoon. The core focus being on the cars weakness in low speed corners , but he has predicted some excitement about the potential shown. He said it was the most significant car development that McLaren had introduced since the major update that helped turn around its season from the Austrian GP.
he said, “Probably since Austria, it is the thing that we believe will kind of help us move forward the most since then. Obviously, we’ve not run it on the track yet and so we don’t want to say too much until we’ve actually got it to work properly but it’s a good step. The team have worked hard to get it on one of the cars here, and then we’ll have the rest in Japan too. So it is an exciting couple of weekends for us.”
The team will be hoping for the same or similar step forwards they had in Spielberg and Norris suggested their was optimism that could be the case. However, its unlikely to address one of the key issues with the car’s r characteristics that are still hampering him attacking as much as he would like
New directive “nice” if slowed Red Bull down
Mercedes CEO and team principal Toto Wolff has said it would be “nice” if Red Bull was dramatically slowed by latest flexi-wing clampdown, but is sceptical about that happening. This weekend tighter regulations via a new technical directive, is being introduced to stop teams playing around with flexi-floors.
While it is unclear just how much impact the changes are going to have on each individual team, the prospects of a dramatic shake-up in the order have been played down by leading figures. Amid suggestions that Aston Martin has already this season had to row back on some of its aggressive wing flexibility, Wolff is intrigued to see what the impact will be.
Wolff told Motorsport.com “It’s going to be interesting. I think with the Aston Martin you’ve seen that they made a step backwards with their wing moving less, but I don’t know the details. Let’s wait and see.”
“I don’t know who is exploiting them to a bigger degree than others, but it’s maybe Red Bull [if it] is half a second slower suddenly. That would be nice, but I don’t think that will be the case.”
Its believed these changes will not lead to big shake-up in the competitive order.
The FIA’s single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis does not expect there to be a huge impact on the competitive order. He said, “I don’t think we’ll see huge changes. “Compared to other interventions done in the past, I don’t expect revolutions. These are medium-low level interventions and, for this reason, the teams are not shouting and have taken the changes quite well.”
Williams head of vehicle performance Dave Robson said the scale of the demands from the FIA would likely trigger work from all teams, as he hoped there would be some impact on teams ahead.
“I think the way the TDs are written, they’re clearly aimed at quite specific things that the FIA have seen, so they must be affecting some people. Overall we don’t think it affects us very much. There is a little bit we need to do on our floors, but on the wing side of things not a big deal. So yeah, hopefully, it will slow some people down.”