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!
 
Being fair, given the erratic driving of Vettel behind the safety car, he should at the very least receive a reprimand! It's not the first time that Vettel has been trouble behind the safety car though- think of Hungary 2010- he got a drive through for that one!
 
Brogan
True- but it was a little late in the safety car procedure to still be warming brakes- from what I remember, Vettel had already let the safety car go, and was then accelerating and braking suddenly - which is prohibited... (almost like china 2010.....)
 
It's taking the stewards quite a while to rule on Vettel and Button.
That usually indicates not good news so I fully expect Vettel to get a penalty.
 
Andrew Benson said:
Big Red Bull deputation has gone down to the stewards, who are investigating the Vettel-Button re-start incident. Something serious brewing?
It's not looking good for Vettel.
 
Bit harsh for Vettel to get a penalty - I'm sure they'd like to give him a reprimand, however, that would suggest in the future anyone can start then stop then start again behind the safety car and get a reprimand. So I think they may be forced to give him a penalty. Guess who this works out best for? Alonso... jeez that guy just has everything going his way.
 
I've seen a number of people (on a number of sites) claiming that McLaren "gambled" by not fitting a new gearbox to Hamilton's car. Has anyone seen any indication anywhere that McLaren knew there was anything wrong with the gearbox before it started failing during the race?
 
After Hamilton stopped his car, his mechanic mentioned that Hamilton did do everything he could yesterday despite the problem (or something alike). So that's an indication they knew something was wrong.
 
Wow - a lot of penalties. And I think the stewards have made the correct decisions on all of them - especially Senna & Schumachers'. Schumi for committing the same incident twice, and Senna could have created something nasty - the stewards seem to have penalised the cause, not the consequence, which, in my opinion, is a good thing.
 
Back
Top Bottom