After the celebrations for the double success of Charles Leclerc at Spa and Monza, for Scuderia Ferrari it is now time to return to roll up their sleeves ahead of what will most likely be a much more difficult Singapore Grand Prix this weekend. The two Maranello drivers arrive at the event in Marina Bay with opposite moods: if the Monegasque has been touching the sky with a finger for three weeks, Sebastian Vettel must get out of the pit of errors and difficulties that he has dug all around. Regardless of what their mood is, however, the red drivers in Marina Bay will have to deal with a common opponent: the layout of the Asian circuit.
The SF90, as fast as a bullet in Belgium and Italy, hardly digests the continuous start & stop imposed by the track created in the eastern city-state. Naturally the will is to improve, after also learning from the problems experienced on all the slow tracks faced during the 2019 Formula One season, especially in Budapest . As Luigi Perna explained in today’s Gazzetta dello Sport, the Italian side has designed a specific ‘Singapore package’, a high-downforce configuration that, working on the wings and diffuser, should improve the car’s performance in slow corners.
The estimated improvement would be around 0.3 seconds compared to what was seen in Hungary. A good step forward, but certainly not sufficient if one considers that in Budapest the first Ferrari to the finish the race, the SF90 of Sebastian Vettel, was 61 seconds behind the winner 70 laps. The hope in Maranello, is obviously that of a crazy and unpredictable race at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, considering that since the first event, which took place back in 2008, the Singapore GP has always seen the Safety Car as an important factor in deciding the final results.
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