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!
 
Talking about tyre wear, what about the Hulk? Getting popped by Schumacher for Q3 might turn out to have dome him a favour of sorts, allowing him to start on new rubber.
 
Andrew Benson (BBC website f1 guy) on twitter;
EJ's excelled himself on the shirt front. Looking so pleased cos he's doing the podium interviews today.
 
Lewis has been so unlucky this year. Vettel, who has also had more than his fair share of bad luck, may have a shot at the championship but Alonso now has nine out of ten fingers on the drivers championship trophy.

Still a lot of racing to go today though
 
Oh Schumi, how many times has he run into the back of someone?
This race is really peetering out. At least it won't take 5+ laps to regroup again.

(Whispers) I've spent more time watching the touring cars.
 
If it was a known problem they should have changed it and taken the 5 place penalty.

Also, I think they should change the allowing lapped cars to pass SC rule as it makes them much longer. Surely it would be easier to make the lapped cars pull out of the way, let everyone else drive past them, and reset everyone to be on the lead lap.
 
Courtesy of https://twitter.com/skysportspete

schumacher-vergne.webp
 
Seeming as Lewis' gearbox didn't even get halfway through the race and they knew about it beforehand, it seems quite a gamble to not just replace it. He still could have come away with a podium at least as he was much faster than Alonso. I guess hindsight is a great thing but it has gone badly wrong.

I suppose Hamilton now needs to win every race. If he does so then if Alonso got two 2nds and four 3rds (which in itself is not likely), Hamilton would gain 54 points on him.

You want a way to win the championship that is in your own hands and you feel it is if he wins every race and with McLaren's form that is possible, just a big long shot. Then again if Alonso retires and Hamilton wins you suddenly have 25 points, so that would be a big help.

I'm thinking sooner than later Red Bull and McLaren are eventually going to get both of their drivers in-front of Alonso, which would mean Alonso could finish 5th at maximum and thus the winner would gain 15 points on him.
 
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