Leclerc's Singapore sacrifice for Sainz - a driver too good to be No2

Around the humid floodlit streets of Singapore Carlos Sainz delivered Ferrari a brilliantly unruffled victory to become the first non-Red Bull winner of the season. From pole, in a car which tended to suffer more tyre degradation than the Mercedes of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton or the McLaren of Lando Norris – all of which were in contention for the win – Sainz set about winning at the slowest possible speed.

That way, not only would he give his tyres the easiest possible time, but he’d keep the field so compressed by running no faster than the midfield, that the gaps would not open up for his pursuers to make an undercut attempt around the pitstop window. Supported by team-mate Charles Leclerc in the tail-gunner role, Sainz just drove to the gap, guided by the pitwall, exactly as was laid out in the team plan earlier in the day. A plan which Leclerc had bought into, understanding that this was probably only a winnable race for Ferrari if the strategies of the two cars could be combined to frustrate the likely Mercedes and Norris challenges.

He’d much rather it was him in the leading role of course but accepted it was his own shortfall in qualifying — where he was third-fastest albeit only eight-hundredths of a second slower than Sainz’s pole — which had placed him here. Once he’d agreed to the team plan, it was then his own initiative to volunteer to start on softs rather than the mediums which made a one-stop strategy much more comfortable. Correctly reckoning that everyone else in the first few rows would begin on mediums, the softs would help him out-accelerate Russell off the grid and put him into the second place essential to helping Ferrari dictate the pace.

Running 1-2, Ferrari could use Leclerc to back Russell and the closely-following pack away from Sainz at the chosen time, allowing Carlos to pull out the gap needed to make a stop, but preventing the others from being able to do so. Once Sainz had that gap, the plan was for Leclerc to go on for as long as his softs would allow. But that likely wouldn’t be much past lap 25 and he’d then be left to manage as best he could, having released Sainz to victory. It didn’t happen quite like that because there was a safety car on lap 20, which brought everyone in at the same time – meaning Leclerc had to be stacked behind Sainz. A further delay for pitlane traffic lost him places to Russell, Norris and Hamilton. With his engine by now running way too hot, Leclerc turned everything down and limped home a very distant fourth, only just clear at the flag of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull which had not even been able to qualify in the top 10.

It was a true team performance from Ferrari, delivered with discipline and both drivers played their roles to perfection, with Sainz in the late stages cleverly allowing Norris to get within DRS range so that he in turn could hold off the attacking Mercs of Russell and Hamilton on much newer and softer tyres. A late VSC (for Esteban Ocon’s broken-down Alpine) had allowed Mercedes to throw the dice of a second pit stop for the much faster fresh tyres. Had it not been for Sainz’s clever ruse, the Mercs would surely have taken a 1-2. Instead, Russell crashed out of third on the final lap, with Hamilton inheriting the place.