Grand Prix 2018 Singapore Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

It is an oft quoted statement that if God had meant man to fly he would have given him wings. Similarly, if F1 cars were meant to race at night God would have given them headlights.

In the good old days of BE Ecclestone money talked very loudly and when the government of Singapore entered the offices of FOM with multiple suitcases full of dollars all Bernie could do was smile and pocket the cash. "But what about our TV audience," muttered one of Bernie's minions, "aren't they all in Europe?". "Oh crap" said Bernie "I know, let's run the race at 2pm GMT then I'm richer and all the mugs are happy". "Won't it be dark then though?" muttered a minion.

Bernie experimented with a 6v LED torch, he "acquired" from B&Q, strapped to the front of one of his old Brabhams but Bert Millander kept crashing it so Bernie went back to the nice people in Singapore and told them to turn all the street lights up to 11 as the race would be at night "to ensure that the primary TV audience was kept happy". Presumably those who would like to attend a race live without a 12 hour international flight don't matter.

Enough of my griping, this year is the tenth anniversary of F1's first night race. I don't think it's possible to forget the first race in 2008 but it did, at least, rid F1 of a large Italian gentleman as a team principal. Last year the race was suppose to be a slam dunk for Ferrari but Sebastian Vettel all but destroy his chance of taking the World Championship when he wiped out himself, Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen before they had reached the first corner. Might something similar happen in 2018?

But what of Singapore itself? It was founded by Stamford Raffles in 1819, although I'm sure there must have been something there before this chinless British no-mark wandered up and decided to build some stuff. This does explain the Raffles Hotel and bar though. When the Empire crumbled It was originally part of the federation of Malaysian and became independent in 1963. The Singaporeans and Malaysian didn't get on too well so in 1965 Singapore went it's own way and in the process created the largest city-state in the world. That said, when your competition is Monaco and The Vatican you are probably going to win.

It has the 39th largest economy in the world, which for a country with no natural resources and a population of 5.6 million is quite astonishing. What is more astonishing is that it has the 3rd highest GDP per capita in the world! Since independence it was increased it's land mass by 23% but hasn't had to invade anyone to achieve this, it's all land reclaimed from the sea.

Although 2008 saw the first Championship Grand Prix, the first Grand Prix was held in Singapore in 1966 at the Thomson Road circuit (Thomson Road Grand Prix circuit - Wikipedia). Racing continued there until 1973, the poor safety record being a major contributor to events being stopped with 7 drivers losing their lives in 11 years. If you take a look on Google Earth the circuit layout is still there - Google Maps

To set you up for the GP round one of the cleanest cities on the planet here are a few weird facts.
  • You can't buy chewing gum in Singapore or bring it in to the country.
  • If you travel between Singapore and Malaysia in a Singaporean registered car you must have more than 2/3rds of a tank of fuel (this will be checked at the border) to stop people traveling to Malaysia for cheaper petrol.
  • Michael Fay, an American student, was once sentenced to 6 strokes with a cane for theft and vandalism. Bizarrely the United States, a country which still has the death sentence in many states and regularly puts adulst with the IQ of a child in the electric chair, considered this punishment harsh. It didn't seem to change the boy much as he has gone on to have a number of further run-ins with the law.
  • The longest human tooth was extracted in Singapore, it was 3.2 cm long
  • If you can get your hands on a 1,000 Singapore dollar bill the entire national anthem is printed on the back (in very tiny print)
  • Israel trains the Singapore army
Enjoy the race.
 
I have just seen an article where Pirelli claims that the best strategy is to start on ultrarsofts, run them for approx 24 laps and then switch to the yellow tyres (soft). Apparently Ferrari haven't done a single lap this week end with the soft tyres :facepalm: they never stop to amaze me
 
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Of course he should’ve won Monza. Bottas helped him by forcing Raikkonen to follow him and destroy his tyres and decrease the gap to Hamilton.
He should also be on pole in Singapore. It’s not magic. Every car is subject to the laws of physics and neither Matt Adore nor Hamilton can push their cars beyond that limit.

but i'll admit Ferrari are chucking this away more than Mercedes winning this, but im talking pre race in monza Ferrari had been quickest all weekend & front row lockout. Ferrari should've taken that win. then we come to Singapore where this has been their worse track since 2015 always 3rd quickest team 5th 3rd & 5th, he stuck it on pole this year . you cant say he hasn't exceed the teams expectations with a win & pole
 
Todt was the politician, Brawn - the tactician, Schumacher - the driver . More importantly they delivered the results on the track and fended off all the knives and daggers at Maranello even though it was accused for being too foreign and not Italian enough which Luca tried to change and failed badly

First by not giving Brawn the team principal job
 
the Italians have designed and built the car, the ones who run the strategies are foreigners ;):whistle:
True, very true, especially the strategy aspect, however for sake of accuracy, Mattia Binotto (CTO) was born in Lausanne, Switzerland. Isn't Ricciardo Adami Sebastian's race engineer? Not sure if it is him, or Jock Clear who calls governing shots on tactics during a race.
 
Lets not say there is conspiracy theory that Jock Clear is a mole sent by Mercedes within Ferrari to sabotage the drivers races and help his old team win:whistle:
 
but i'll admit Ferrari are chucking this away more than Mercedes winning this, but im talking pre race in monza Ferrari had been quickest all weekend & front row lockout. Ferrari should've taken that win. then we come to Singapore where this has been their worse track since 2015 always 3rd quickest team 5th 3rd & 5th, he stuck it on pole this year . you cant say he hasn't exceed the teams expectations with a win & pole
It’s 2018 though, not ‘14, ‘15, ‘16 nor ‘17. The performances of those years are not relevant for today.
Hamilton wasn’t light years away from the Ferrari’s in Monza or Spa either which suggests that the Mercedes is actually on par with Ferrari and the hierarchy can change at every year and on every track. We even have a Red Bull on P2.
In the years Vettel won his championships, no one pretended that Webber was the baseline for the cars performances and suddenly all of Vettel’s laps were miracles. Why do it now? Do you think Hamilton is performing wonders? Bottas is heavily underperforming like the second half of last season. He wasn’t that far off Hamilton in the first half of the season which suggests quite a drop in form on his side.
Clay I have to say that Merc car car confuses the hell out of me. In Q1 there were times it looked impossibly stiff like it didn't want to turn at all and it was no surprise to see Hamilton running wide and over kerbs. By the time we got to Q3 though it's it's charactetistics seemed to have changed completely and it was cornering like a dream.
He used the Ultrasoft in Q1 whilst the others all used the Hypersofts. The track also evolves during the session which impacts each car differently.

Ferrari, I suspect, will have higher tyre degradation than Mercedes and Red Bull today. Adding to that they will have to follow Verstappen and Hamilton will only enhance tyre degradation.
 
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whoever is stuck behind Verstappen might have a serious hard time getting past him if Max decides to brake late and shove them into the wall and still proclaim his innocence
 
a few thoughts

Hamilton - one spell binding lap and a controlled race - really crushed the opposition with the exception of Verstappen. 40pts lead with 6 races to go

Next 3 races he will fancy his chances at all those tracks

Verstappen - mature drive after last race antics

Vettel - must be wondering if the world is against him right now . Another track where he was expected to win and another bad (panicked) call by Ferrari but again something is lacking in the team

Bottas - on his early season form he deserved the contract but lately just constantly slower than Hamilton. The Wingman comment seems to have sapped something out of him


Dickhead of the race

Perez - put his teammate out of the race and then decides he wants to bulldoze Sirotkin . I wonder if anyone might have second thoughts about him at Force India or elsewhere. He cost the team a lot of points today

May this is why he did not get the Ferrari seat he much coveted?
 
....Apparently Ferrari haven't done a single lap this week end with the soft tyres :facepalm: they never stop to amaze me

At the start of Q2 the Ferraris came out together and put in two timed laps. The commentators commented that their times were slower than they had done in the morning by a few tenths. This surprised me since on the TV that I was watching the tyre walls were yellow, as verified by my granddaughter and the tyre history on the F1 web site.

If I still have the recording I will have a look to double check.
 
....Vettel - must be wondering if the world is against him right now . Another track where he was expected to win and another bad (panicked) call by Ferrari but again something is lacking in the team....

The team made another cock-up unless there really was nothing left on his tyres. He came out on the wrong tyres behind the wrong man. Another couple of laps and he would have been in front of Verstappen after his pit stop and in a position to usem his tyres instead of nurse them for the rest of the race. The team did tell him that his tyres would not last to the end so for once he drove with his brain in gear.
 
So in Baku last year Vettel hit Hamilton in a delberate manner at a pedestrian speed and there was total uproar. There was talk of him being banned and so on, it was a huge deal.
In this race, whilst they were racing at some speed and after already shoving his team mate into a wall on the first lap, Perez couldn't have more obviously driven into Sirotkin. He got a drive through and that's the end of it? How does that even work? It just makes no sense to me at all, none.
 
Bill Boddy Vettel was stuck behind Perez for 1 lap and it probably cost him two seconds and the time needed to get ahead of Verstappen

He had to manage the tyres towards the end of the race but from then on he was just soldiering on. Some are saying Bottas on the same tyre at Hamilton missed a podium opportunity and is proving to be a No 2 driver
 
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