Grand Prix 2012 Singapore Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

From the sunshine, trees and Ferrari madness of Monza to the water front and arc lights of Singapore, F1 begins the long haul end of the season with a night race at imaginatively named Marina Bay circuit. McLaren have won the last three races but Fernando Alonso still retains a significant margin in the Drivers Championship going into round 14. Last year was a Red Bull walk over but this year the Bulls have been somewhat castrated and Monza proved a real low point with a double DNF.

Lewis Hamilton's pole to flag win in Italy must give him great hope of chasing down Alonso's Championship lead, hopefully the on-going contract shenanigans won't distract him in the City State race. Don't under estimate Ferrari however, Massa showed good pace at Monza and Fernando Alonso is the only multiple Singapore GP winner in the field, one win behind matching Graeme Lawrence's three victories (look it up if you don't believe me).

After a pulsating second at Monza Sergio Perez must be hoping to go one better this race as his Sauber, through a combination of out right pace and strategy, was chasing down the leading McLaren towards the end in Italy. Whether their usual unusual strategy in Singapore will reap the same dividends remains to be seen, perhaps it's Kamui's turn?

The one man destruction derby that is Romain Grosjean will more than likely be back in the Lotus after Jerome d'Ambrosio put in a workman like, but less than stellar performance, standing in for the Frenchman. Kimi Raikkonen must be hoping the Lotus works better around the streets than it did on the high speed Monza track although fifth wasn't a bad result. Mercedes will, doubtless, continue in their position of best of the rest although Force India were their usual speedy selves around the open curves at Monza and will probably push the Mercs close.

Of the rest, what can you say? Williams - the tortoise and the hare incarnate, albeit the hare seems to have a habit of breaking a leg a little too often. Should we run a sweep on whether Pastor or Romain will punt another driver off first? The back of the grid are using the Noah principal and will come in "two by two", in qualie at least. This is a special race for Narain Karthikeyan as it marks the anniversary of his début at HRT having driven the Spanish shit box in free practice last year. Money well spent...

Pointless fact about Singapore: If you cross into Malaysia with less than 3/4's of a tank of fuel you will be fined $100 dollars.

Circuit write up is here: http://cliptheapex.com/pages/marina-bay-street-circuit/ enjoy!
 
I'd rather like to see a bit of rain (do they get showers in Singapore or is it just whopping great monsoons?), I can't imagine how difficult it would be driving with the glare under those lights, I hate going out in the rain at night on normal streets.
I'm hoping for a Lewis win (as always) but as long as it's exciting I'm not too particular as long as it's decided on track & not off it.
Ruddy typical the BBc show a live race & I won't be in to watch it, on the other hand I'll be collecting my two new puppies so no contest really - I'm hoping that running around after them will make me fitter :D
 
I'm quite looking forward to this race, I think we're due a classic in Singapore. We never had any expectations of the Valencia gp and look what we were dished up? :).

Anyways pressures all on the chasing pack to cut Alonso's lead in the championship, think he's in the best position.
 
I think if it does rain we will have most of the race under the safety car. The glare off the floodlights is an unknown.
They could even have delayed starts and such nonsense.
Dry race for me would be good.

Hopefully Alonso will have a poor race and bring everyone within a few points of each other for the final 6 races.
Brilliant season so far.
 
Major alarm bells for Caterham as Glock finished FP1 ahead of Heikki and Pic finished ahead of Petrov.

Are Caterham testing something? High fuel runs? or have Marussia hit the sweet spot at last and are now on course to really take the fight to the Caterham squad?
 
I'm confused. :thinking:

A number of commentators actually referenced the high fuel race pace and said things like "The McLaren and Red Bull race pace are similar" James Allen wrote:
James Allen said:
When the drivers came to do their high fuel long runs later in the second session, the pace of both Red Bull and McLaren looked very close.

How did he manage to extrapolate that from these times set by Seb and Lewis?


Vettel__________Hamilton
16 9:03.402_____15 12:39.796
17 1:55.813_____16 1:55.067
18 1:55.352_____17 1:54.779
19 1:55.321_____18 2:02.916
20 1:55.725_____19 1:54.332
21 1:55.618_____20 1:54.978
22 1:55.822_____21 1:54.859
23 P 2:03.292___22 2:03.436
24 2:24.236_____23 1:55.855
25 1:55.516_____24 1:55.519
26 P 2:13.148___25 1:55.506
________________26 1:56.529
________________27 1:57.673
________________28 P 2:11.572
 
I have read that RBR tend to run a higher fuel load in FP2 for their runs... maybe there is a some sort of adjustment factor from previous FP2's that can be applied...
 
I don't think pole will win this one. Whoever judges their tyre wear and pitstops best will have a much greater advantage than normal. The price for staying out one lap too long on this track will cost dearly due to the timed length of the lap. My bet, the winner will three stop, but the timing of those stops will be critical. I'm not even going to guess who might win it, could be any of the top 5. Traffic may also play a greater role than normal.
 
Just a gut feeling Chad Stewarthill. The cars are quite different this year, without the blown double diffusers I think tyre wear will play a much bigger role and I think dealing with slower traffic could also be more difficult though that won't be an issue until later in the race. As I say its just a feeling that I realize could well be proved wrong, though I don't think it will be. You only have to look at the results so far this season to realize last years form book has been thrown out the window so to speak. I'm no different than anyone else Chad, I have fun guessing. So far my guesses are going quite well for me though. :)
 
So Kewee, as the Saubers tend to go long on their stops, Lotus rarely seem to get their pit stop strategy right, Ferrari and Mclaren can sometimes suffer with their tyre wear (although LH has shown already this season that he can look after his very effectively), I'll look out for someone pretty well up the grid but not on pole (does that rule out Vettel?), who then stops early. Mark Webber perhaps?
 
Chad Stewarthill......Hi Chad. Since I made that last posting I've read quite a lot off the Autosport form guide by Mark Hughes. It's made me even more convinced this will be a fascinating GP. Lotus by their own admission are off the pace. Not enough downforce or grip and a rapid falloff in pace on the supersofts after only three laps. Mclaren also appear to suffer a greater falloff in pace than Red Bull or Ferrari after ten laps. As Mark Hughes points out that leaves them having to get 25 laps out their primes for the next two stints which many believe is a big ask. He also states that the supersofts don't even give the drivers a full lap at qualifying pace. They have to compromise one sector to get the best lap from them. The last point he makes is teams that try for a two stopper could end up vulnerable if there's a safety car.
There you go Chad, take your pick out of that lot. :) Makes picking a winner a lottery if you believe Mark Hughes, but he is there, viewing the various sessions first hand and he usually has a decent grasp of the teams weaknesses and strengths at the various circuits. :popcorn:
 
I have read that RBR tend to run a higher fuel load in FP2 for their runs... maybe there is a some sort of adjustment factor from previous FP2's that can be applied...


It is the opposite way round Zaks. McLaren always usually run with more fuel for their long runs at the end of FP2 than Red Bull - this has been going on as far back as last year. Mark Hughes has commented on this many times in his post practice analysis. You may also remember Whitmarsh saying many times that "I don't think anyone else could fit more fuel in the car than we had".

Red Bull usually run with 2nd stint fuel and McLaren run with race start fuel.

Anyway, this is not to say that for this particular session things could be different, but it is unlikely Red Bull suddenly decided to put more and McLaren less than they normally do at any other race.

I'd say that from Hamilton's 1:54.3 lap - that was mega fast, but the worrying thing is whether the tyres dropped off significantly at the end of the stint or whether that was just traffic. But looking at Jenson's times, the same happened with him.

Mercedes degradation was unbelievable though, they dropped off the cliff after about 3 or 4 laps and were about 4 seconds slower by around 8 laps.
 
Back
Top Bottom