Red Bull’s Max Verstappen will have his first match point in the next round of the 2022 Formula 1 season: at the 5.063-kilometre Marina Bay Street Circuit in Singapore the Dutchman could win his second F1 world title.
After Monza, Formula 1 says goodbye to European races and we will go racing at night in three weeks on the Marina Bay Street Circuit, a track that “should” be more friendly with Ferrari. It is not certain that this will be enough to stop Red Bull and Max Verstappen, but between now and the end of the 2022 Formula 1 season, the Singapore track represents the one that at the moment should level the performance between Ferrari and Red Bull.
The Singapore Grand prix also represents an important step in terms of technical innovations, as both Scuderia Ferrari and Red Bull plan on introducing updates on their cars. The Marina Bay track is a great test of physical strength for the drivers given the heat and humidity, but it will also be a challenge for the mechanical components, especially regarding the gearbox.
The ERS of the Red Bull Power Train – actually built by the Japanese manufacturer Honda – seems to have helped the RB18 a lot at the Monza circuit. On the reliability front, Red Bull has also had some setbacks over the course of the season. It was certainly not the strong point of Milton Keyens’ car, together with the overweight of the car.
There is no certain information on the alleged lightweight chassis, which Red Bull would have homologated during the summer. The chassis that would guarantee a weight reduction of around 4kg would have passed the crash tests but remained on standby in the factory. The performance seen on track and the technical superiority shown by Red Bull allows the Austrian team to postpone such as development and therefore hide its possible gains. Christian Horner’s team does not want to draw attention to itself with the new chassis, given the controversy regarding the budget cap issue, which has been raised by other Team Principals, including Mattia Binotto:
“As a team we at Ferrari would never be able to introduce a new chassis. The reasons are obviously related to the budget limitations, and I would be very surprised if other teams were able to do so” – Mattia Binotto recently said regarding the possible introduction of the new chassis on the RB18. Red Bull continues to compete with two different floors on the two drivers’ cars, with Sergio Perez using the Ferrari-style bottom for several races, while Max Verstappen using the sealed version without cutting.
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Singapore could also be an important test in terms of porpoising, although cars do not reach very high speeds at the Marina Bay Street Circuit. The maximum load settings and the bumps present on the urban road surface could led to more bouncing. In Red Bull’s case it has been surprising since the beginning of the year that in some way they managed to avoid the phenomenon of bouncing, while at the same time being able to remain constant in terms of ride height. Adrian Newey – even on single-seaters equipped with Venturi channels – did not want to abandon the concept of a car equipped with a rake set-up, which keeps the floor high enough from the ground at medium-low corners, and then drops when speed increases. This proved to be an advantage without a doubt. If Ferrari and Red Bull would have been at the same level of performance seen up to the French Grand Prix, then the Maranello team would have definitely been favourite in Singapore.
However, given the post-Technical Directive 39 performance, stopping Max Verstappen’s dominance remain difficult to achieve at the moment.
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