“You beauty Seb! Well done!” shouted Christian Horner to Sebastian Vettel after he took the chequered flag in the Singapore Grand Prix. “You’re back in this championship.”
There was uncertainty about how long the soft and super soft tyres were going to last during the race, but everyone was pretty sure that there would be a safety car; such is the nature of this street track.
Both predictions were spot on with varying tyre strategies – some more successful than others, and two safety cars – one for a Narain Karthikeyan crash and one for another huge misjudgement from Michael Schumacher on an unsuspecting Jean Eric Vergne.
One thing no one could predict was Lewis Hamilton’s gearbox coming to a grinding halt on lap 23. The problem spelt the end of his race and another victory for Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel. Even after the two safety cars Vettel held onto the lead, putting him second in the championship behind Alonso.
Hamilton had been having a perfect weekend up to the beginning of lap 23. Vettel may have held the advantage in the three practice sessions, but come qualifying Hamilton put in a lap at the start of Q3 that no one could get close to. The Red Bull driver was visibly cross after the session as he felt he’d missed his opportunity at a track when so much depends on grid position. He didn’t even make it onto the front row in the end after Pastor Maldonado had a great qualifying session and split the two cars. Jenson Button lined up fourth on the grid, after struggling with his setup, and Alonso fifth.
Hamilton got away cleanly from Maldonado, but Vettel managed to squeeze past the Williams in the first two turns, the Venezuelan running wide with understeer in Turn 1. There was the usual scrapping in the midfield, but after the end of the first lap it was Hamilton, Vettel, Button, Maldonado, Alonso, di Resta, Webber and Grosjean who lead the field.
Vettel was the first of the three leaders to pit on lap 10, after a ragged couple of laps on his old tyres, but a few minutes later Hamilton was on the radio complaining that he had “a funny feeling with his tyres”. He had clipped the wall in his second Q3 run with his right rear so the team quickly pulled him in and put him on a fresh set of softs. Button pitted two laps later on lap 14, but having closed the gap to the two leaders before their stops he emerged behind Vettel once again.
Things were looking good for Hamilton as even though Vettel was clinging onto the back on him, Button was closing up and with no realistic chance of the championship this year his job would be to distract Vettel. That was before lap 23, though.
With Hamilton out it was Vettel’s race to lose. The first safety car was out soon after Karthikeyan understeered into the exit of the tight Turn 18. Everyone dived into the pits, bar Webber – who had pitted only five laps before, and Alonso. Soon after the pack calmed down behind the safety car Maldonado had to retire his Williams from fourth, a harsh finish to what had been one of his better weekends.
There were no changes from the leaders when the safety car pulled in at the end of lap 38 with Vettel leading from Button, Alonso, di Resta, Hulkenberg and Webber. Only a lap later, as the middle of the field was desperately jockeying for positions, Schumacher made a huge braking misjudgement and ploughed into the back of Jean Eric Vergne. He was so deep into the corner before braking it prompted his team to ask “what happened there?” This was the longest race of the year and the flag had to be waved before the correct number of laps were completed at the two-hour mark. Some will be questioning whether or not Schumacher can still handle such a punishing race.
Despite another restart, and a close call with Button nearly sliding into the back of Vettel when they were warming up their tyres, the Red Bull driver didn’t look threatened.
“I want to dedicate this win to a very, very special man – Sid Watkins,” he said on the podium afterwards. “He’s the reason why we can go out on a circuit like this and enjoy ourselves.” One man who was certainly enjoying himself was Alonso, who once again climbed through the field in the Ferrari and walked away with yet more valuable points.
Not a bad race but as ever, the Safety Car played a part. Clearly this is almost inevitable on this type of circuit (and particularly this circuit). Alonso maintains his high standard and Button was a pleasure to watch. The Singapore backdrop is genuinely spectacular but is it enough? The continued use of the turn ten chicane – the “Mickey Mouse” as DC calls it defies belief. After all, a ramp launching cars into a wall is not very F1 to my mind. Having said that, if we were to remove all things “Mickey Mouse” from F1 it would be a short season indeed.
After a rather good Summer in Europe we have just Japan and Brazil to look forward to and the remainder to pad it all out.
Two races in the USA next year? Like buses!
The Singapore backdrop was enough to make me tune in but the first DRS pass, as always, made me tune back out. And imagine getting a penalty for bringing your car to the grid in good order…
I took a little nap there in the middle of the parade.
The TV guys in the US keep going on about what a great venue, facility, and destination Singapore is, but Steve Matchett slipped and told the truth. “What a horrible place to try and pass.”
Other than mechanical failure, no racing of consequence.
This circuit has to be the most overhyped of all time,painfully slow corners with a horrible chicane.Holding the event at night just gives it more of a gimmicky feel.
Great race by Vettel. Growing very tired of these parade races on steet circuits. Alonso simply has to stay awake and title is his as someone new wins every week.
Another race that was only made mildly interesting by the safety car, I find it a real shame that in nearly every accident there has to be a driver taking the blame. I’m no Schumacher supporter, far from it but I find it disapointing that his error or possible mechanical failure wrecks his chances in the next GP.
Uh-oh, the comedy tyres are back. That, combined with a boring street circuit which practically guarantees a SC appearance, meant a parfect recipe for an exciting-looking but ulimately unsatisfying race.
Was there an outstanding drive of the day? If there was, I missed it, just say a bunch of guys dutifully doing their jobs, like watching a bunch of sparkys wiring a house, interesting, but not inspiring or exciting.
Mclaren’s ongoing reliability gremlins drop it into RB-Renault territory, worse when the points lost by early season pitstop slapstick are factored in. How many years of being a bridesmaid before talented people decide it’d be better to go elsewhere and build up a different challenger? With Martin and Sam, where is this team going? And Button’s lack of aggression, missing ‘attack’ gene, trailing and waiting for others’ misfortune/mistakes? Is it worth continuing to invest my support in Macca?
Vettel, Kimi and Ham within 20 points in old money, though, so it’s not quite Fernando’s title yet.
Schumacher harshly dealt with – methinks they want him out…
Singapore is one of my fave places to visit, but without the ‘doing it in the dark’ gimmick this race would undoubtedly be one of the most boring by far. It’s a pity they renewed the contract tbh, F1 should decide whether it’s primarily a racing series or a series of social events. Cancelling it would’ve also meant the stain of Crashgate would slowly fade from memory, but as it is it never will (mischievous-eyed EJ to FA in the podium interview, “You really like it here, don’t you?” etc.. I’m sure FA, as a pretty honorable bloke unsettled by events in 07 and 08, cringes every time he passes through Changi…)
The return of celebs and CEO’s on the grid, plus it being hyped as ‘a business city’, showed the one and only reason there is an event (I won’t call it a race) in Singapore.
..uh…more of this until 2017.
I’m sure in Singapore, even the rats have three-color LEDs.
What a nice gift McLaren gave to Red Bull, for without the gearbox of Lewis’ car going crunch, Vettel would have been second for sure. And it is time for Michael to call it a career, we’ve all seen enough.
Shame for Lewis, too bad it wasn’t Alonso to take best advantage. Don’t need to see SV 3rd time in a row for champion. However, very poor circuit as already said. Either boring or dangerous, depending on the corner, and that silly chicane is ridiculous. The city is fine, maybe the circuit could be improved substantially.
Schumi’s crash reminded me of that old man who rear-ended me a few years ago. He was no where near the right speed for that corner, and JEV likely saved a major shunt from occurring by slowing him down.
F1 is a family, and as a family, its time to sit gramps down at some point and take away the keys before he hurts someone.
The usal boring race on a rubbish circuit. I fell asleep after the start and I woke up around lap 20. As already written by somebody else we now only have Suzuka and Interlagos to look forward.
14 comments so far dear colleagues. All principally negative. Are we a ‘team’ of ‘glass half empty’ depressives?
Maybe this part of the site should be called the Complaints Register?
Surely things are not that bad. Look on the bright side of life!
xxx from Down Under (see, I didn’t even mention Webber).
I am also fed up with all the penalties. The penalty to Mark Webber is ridicolous. Let them race !
Well John , you’re right, but among enthusiasts, it’s been painful to watch F1 degrade to the point of NASCAR with the emphasis being on TV entertainment. We now have a season of polar opposites in terms of tracks, from the older, non LED tracks like Spa and Monza, onto the racing at night tracks around a city course were passing isn’t at all possible. Of course, few complain of Monaco, which is no better.
F1 needs a turnover of drivers, management, regulations and track designers.To me, it was all summed up with Eddie Jordan’s shirt.
The above quotes of DC, Matchett, and Kimi about sum it up.
My vote is to trade the whole bean-counter lot for one Lord March.
I was going to write ‘no comment’ as I can’t think of anything constructive to say!
I will say two things on one subject. The first safety car bunched the field up and thus led to the second safety car.
When JB oh so nearly collected SV, did anyone not think that SV had gone for it, and then changed his mind, because he certainly had me fooled as well as Jenson.
Andrew Scoley,
I too thought that Vettel had ‘gone’ at the end of the second safety car. It was lucky Button was switched on enough to dive to the left. It’s always a great time to gain a small advantage behind a safety car, but I must admit – this move (if you can call it that) looked a little borderline!
EF
If nothing else, Singapore is useful as a microcosm of the entire season. Superficially exciting, but to those who can see past the LEDs and the hanger – on celebs, an empty pointless charade of what F1 should be. I know it’s expecting rather too much to go back to the days when the likes of Frank Williams changed engines in a tent in a field by the track on Saturday evenings, but it seems to me that it’s gone far too far the other way now: there’s nothing left for me to relate to, not now that anything that looks remotely like racing is investigated by the stewards and now that every “race” is decided by these ridiculous tyres. I could just about cope with the invasion of the paddock by the likes of Rhianna and her ilk, as long as the racing was good when the grid was cleared and all the bullshit stopped and it was just down to twenty cars and their drivers. Now the bullshit doesn’t stop until everyone goes home.
i adore F1, but apathy is starting to overcome my historic fondness, i am not looking forward too the new engines and feel this year is becoming – gosh- dare I say it- a grind- MOTO GP next weekend – much more exciting – but F1, sorry Singapore I am told you are an amazing place to visit – shame you haven’t a circuit to match,
lets face it – its yet another gimmick to satisfy us poor fans so the monied ones get coin in, um more coin, Ed, there was a lovely article on Patrick and Long Beach- puts Singapore into perspective doesn’t it?
A pedestrian, uninspiring and third-rate report on a pedestrian, uninspiring and third-rate race.
Chris b,
Yes – times have certainly changed. And Singapore is no spa, or monza, or any of the other great tracks we could all name. But modern F1 boils down to money and sponsors and many of the sponsors do business in Singapore!
EF
Ed Foster-Agree with your most recent comment, which is why F-1 is becoming less interesting by the day.
Like NASCAR is now, F-1 is becoming nothing more than a very loud corporate product to be peddled.
Eventually, who cares?
Don Larsen, spot on!
Man, three boring races in a row!!! At least F1 is going to a decent track next time, roll on Suzuka. Singapore is just a gimmick, like all street circuits. Didn’t Michael come to grief in a similar manner last year? Have to feel sorry for Hamilton though, without 2 recent DNF’s he’d be a lot closer to Alonso. Isn’t it time for that Ferrari to have some reliability issues?
Totally agree with Don Larsen
Ray T, my DVR stopped recording just before the podium. Please if you can, enlighten me as to Eddie Jordan’s shirt?
Ed, yes business in Singapore which is why I was not surprised to see that Thailand has an agreement to host a GP in 2014 in Bangkok – another night-street race….. Oh boy, can’t wait……NOT!!!!
Thank goodness we have Goodwood to whet the appetite for the historian in all of us….
G’day Tony,
Guess where I’ll be on Sunday week……………Sayonara!
Sorry mate…….couldn’t help myself.