The Singapore GP unfolded as expected in terms of strategies. No big surprises, except for the Soft tires chosen by Hamilton and Ricciardo at the start. A risk, as we noted this morning. The driver who opted for this solution needed to make overtakes in the first stint and hope there wouldn’t be Safety Cars when it was time to pit early compared to the competition to change tires.
The drivers did an extraordinary job of avoiding incidents and neutralizations, but unfortunately, the strategy didn’t pay off for Lewis Hamilton. Norris and Verstappen had better performance even on Medium tires, and once the Briton pitted, he was immediately overcut by all those who extended their first stint on C4 tires.
The strategy recap
Before diving into the details, let’s recap the strategies. Most of the drivers opted for Pirelli’s fastest strategy, which was Medium C4-Hard C3. This included the race winner Norris, Verstappen, Piastri, Russell, Leclerc, Sainz, Alonso, Hulkenberg, Perez, Colapinto, and Ocon. Only Hamilton started on Soft-Hard. Tsunoda and Gasly went for Medium-Soft, managing the Soft tires for over 20 laps but finishing outside the top 10. Stroll, Zhou, and Bottas went for Hard-Medium.
Ricciardo was the only driver who finished the race on an alternative three-stop strategy. The Australian (rumored to have possibly raced his last F1 race today) went Soft-Medium-Soft-Soft, finishing last in 18th place (due to the retirements of Magnussen and Albon). Daniel’s last stop came three laps from the end to secure the fastest lap and take the additional point away from Lando Norris. Ricciardo succeeded (1’34″486, setting a new track record), but being in P18, no one could claim the extra point.
Norris dominates, two errors don’t detract from his performance
In terms of strategy, the race had little to offer today. Norris decided to push for a lead and, with a very fast pace, especially on the Mediums, finished the race with a gap of almost 21 seconds over Verstappen. Two mistakes, where he almost touched the wall both times, didn’t affect the final result.
Piastri’s excellent management
Mercedes struggled in the first stint, with Hamilton paying for the choice of switching to the Hard tires too early compared to rivals (lap 18). Russell also suffered, forced to pit on lap 29 to switch from Medium to Hard.
Piastri, trailing behind the two silver arrows until that point, extended his C4 stint until lap 40. On Hard tires, he easily overtook both Hamilton and Russell, finishing the race in P3.
Charles Leclerc misses the podium in Singapore
Charles Leclerc had nothing to envy in Oscar Piastri’s performance. The Monegasque switched from Medium to Hard on lap 38. He returned to the track in P8, 26.5 seconds behind Russell in P4 and 63.6 seconds behind the leader (Norris), and then put on an exceptional pace. Charles overtook Alonso and Sainz with ease, got past Hamilton as soon as the opportunity arose, and caught up with Russell toward the end.
Unfortunately, by the time he reached George, the performance gap wasn’t enough to allow a pass. Charles Leclerc finished P5 (starting from P9) 62.430 seconds behind Norris, which means that Charles had a very competitive pace once the track was clear. It’s hard to say if it was enough to challenge McLaren (certainly managing a bit in the final stint), but it was likely good enough to fight for the podium (to be fair, it should be noted that the Monegasque had much fresher tires than his rivals ahead, which certainly played a role, but he also extended his first stint considerably. Our overall assessment balances these factors).
Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc went long in the first stint, hoping for a Safety Car to bring them back into contention for the podium. Oscar succeeded, while Leclerc, starting from P9, really needed a neutralization to aim for more. Still, the fact that he finished less than a second from P4 shows that Ferrari had the pace. It’s a shame about qualifying.
Underwhelming performance from Carlos Sainz, who only managed to overtake Fernando Alonso, Nico Hulkenberg, and Tsunoda. Sergio Perez scored a point from the back of the grid, while Colapinto came close to the top ten after another strong performance. The Argentine Williams driver finished 11th, 1.6 seconds behind Perez.
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