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 don't think the first hit was Perez' fault. You could see his rear was sliding and of course, he had to turn right to catch it. I am with Martin Brundle on this one, Ocon should not have been there. It was a reckless maneuver. Now, I like Ocon, He drives with a lot of panache. It makes him exciting, but this was a case where he ballsy approach caught him out.

On the other hand, the second hit looks pretty damn deliberate. If I had been the steward, I probably would have penalized him worse than what they did. On the other hand, we actually got to see Sirotkin race, and I thought he was doing a pretty good job. I gather Perez and several other drivers were not impressed....but I was.
 
The other thing I don't get from the race is Ferrari mishearing the radio message from Hamilton. Now I'm partially deaf, so I sometimes don't hear radio messages that well when they're broadcast, but I clearly heard Hamilton tell his engineers "there is plenty of life left in these tyres". A few minutes later there is Ferrari on the radio to Vettel telling him that Hamilton said "there isn't much life left in these tyres". I was like, what?

Vettel said he didn't believe it and frankly nor should he have done. It does probably explain though why they called him into the pit so early and lost him a place to Verstappen, they thought they were going to do the undercut I assume. How wrong were they?
 
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.

Mattia Binotto's family is from Reggio Emilia and to my knowledge he lived there most of his life, furthermore from what I understand he has an Italian passport.

I just wanted to point out how easy it is to make fun of "the Italians" when things go wrong at Ferrari and what a sensitive subject this becomes as soon as one points out that actually who makes "Italian" mistakes more often than not is not an Italian :whistle::embarrassed:
 
Mattia Binotto's family is from Reggio Emilia and to my knowledge he lived there most of his life, furthermore from what I understand he has an Italian passport.

I just wanted to point out how easy it is to make fun of "the Italians" when things go wrong at Ferrari and what a sensitive subject this becomes as soon as one points out that actually who makes "Italian" mistakes more often than not is not an Italian :whistle::embarrassed:
I am hoping I didn't give you that impression. Actually I know in person there is quite a lot to like about Italians. Back to Ferrari, they are going through period of awakening. Too much happened too quickly, it could be slightly overwhelming sometimes, however on long run, IMO, I think they will be fine. No need to move team anywhere from where they are now. 8-)
 
Anyone think Ocon's Singapore Grand Prix is a metaphor for his career? Got a great start, looked to be heading forward, the field spread forced him into a place he didn't want to be and them he was squeezed out by Perez.

Fantastic controlled race from Lewis.

Awsome and clever drive from Max.

Sensible and good drive from Vettel (he used his caution head in both duels with Max) but his head went down pretty much after quali because he knew they didn't have strategy to beat an in form Hamilton.

Not sure what the other 3 in the A class were fannying around at.
 
I wonder if other drivers need to do what ever it is Lewis does over the mid-season break? I have this vision of Vettel studying lap by lap race telemetry and fine detail of car set up, Max giving it large in a kart to hone his skills whilst Lewis, after his execrcise sessions, "chills with his hommies". Whatever he does he has come back to the series in astonishing form.
 
I am hoping I didn't give you that impression. Actually I know in person there is quite a lot to like about Italians. Back to Ferrari, they are going through period of awakening. Too much happened too quickly, it could be slightly overwhelming sometimes, however on long run, IMO, I think they will be fine. No need to move team anywhere from where they are now. 8-)

no of course you didn't give me that impression, I replied to your post because you were mentioning Binotto.

Talking about Ferrari, IMHO they can't go on like this, there are some obvious issues in the way the team in run, the very often make major strategic mistakes, their #2 driver is either irrelevant or racing his team mate, their #1 driver seems heartbroken, there doesn't seem to be any sense of direction, their are very passive in their fight against Mercedes, they can come up with a good car but that is not enough, that is what people like Arrivabene or Cammilleri don't seem to understand
 
finally caught up with the grand prix this morning after work & sisters birthday celebrations. not the best race but enough to keep interested for the majority. great drive from Hamilton as I said after qualifying that if that if results was the same that barring crashes or engine problems (touch wood) thats all but game set match lewis & will match Fangio on 5 World Titles because for consective years the title is realistically over in singapore. because now if Hamilton finishes 2nd in every race, vettel has to win every race to win the title. so 1 of the other 4 wins any race now then its out of his hands & he's relying on mechanical problems for lewis

Singapore 281 241
Russia 299 266
Japan 317 291
USA 335 316
Mexico 353 341
Brazil 371 366
Abu Dhabi 389 391

Sergio perez what a moron he was yesterday & what a moron hes made me look for defending him last week saying that he could be easily drive for a big team. I hold my hands up & admit (I think) RasputinLives was right on a different thread. he has let himself down big time at fault not 1 but both incidents, 1st one if your being lenient is that he didnt look in his mirrors before taking racing line & 2nd one is purely unacceptable. it was petulant, the red mist came down. to deliberately drive into anyone is disgrace. espically in this silly season because as ted kravitz said during FP1 or FP2, prize money isn't as big a deal as used to be because of the funds the new backers have. so you never know toto wolff might be preying on this, maybe discussing with force india would you rather have ocon than fiery perez, free engines for you
 
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I don't think the first hit was Perez' fault. You could see his rear was sliding and of course, he had to turn right to catch it. I am with Martin Brundle on this one, Ocon should not have been there. It was a reckless maneuver. Now, I like Ocon, He drives with a lot of panache. It makes him exciting, but this was a case where he ballsy approach caught him out.

On the other hand, the second hit looks pretty damn deliberate. If I had been the steward, I probably would have penalized him worse than what they did. On the other hand, we actually got to see Sirotkin race, and I thought he was doing a pretty good job. I gather Perez and several other drivers were not impressed....but I was.

I totally agree, the first one didn't seem so bad to me, it's not as if he could close the angle any further, if he could it would have meant that he was much slower than the car and the conditions allowed. The second one though was really bad
 
Yes but why hasn't there been more fuss about what Perez did? I still don't get it. As I said before, when Vettel hit Hamilton in Baku there was total uproar. Vettel had to write letters of apology, he had to see Jean Todt and apologise personally etc. there was even talk of championship points being taken away from him because it was a deliberate act and brought the sport into disrepute and jada jada jada.

So why on earth did Perez just get a drive through penalty and that's the end of it when his hit was just as deliberate and even more dangerous given the speed they were going? Sirotkin was doing nothing wrong other than going slower than Perez would have liked and not jumping out of his way, and why should he when he's racing for position? If he'd been blue flagged and ignored it (like Grosjean) I might have understood Perez's frustration a little more. But that simply wasn't the case.

It's the uneven treatment of it all that annoys me. If it was that terrible and wrong when Vettel did it, why isn't equally as wrong when Perez does it?
 
It's the uneven treatment of it all that annoys me. If it was that terrible and wrong when Vettel did it, why isn't equally as wrong when Perez does it?

the uneven treatment of different parties is the cornerstone of modern F1, just look at the difference between Hamilton and Rosberg over the years. I personally don't think that what Vettel did was so evil (the reason being that backing up the pack before the restart on a very long straight like Baku IMHO is criminal) and some of the reactions were totally hysterical and dis-proportioned, having said that I think that Perez punishment was fair.

My problem with F1, well with car racing in general, is that we are in a situation where every time that two cars bang wheel both drivers have to be placed under investigation and a penalty must be handed out. Yesterday afternoon I went to Imola to watch some shopkeers race, it was great fun, one of the races was the Clio Cup, by definition in the Clio Cup you bump into your fellow drivers more often than not (I did 1 race in the Clio Cup in my days, the first thing that they taught me was "knocking" the car in front... I mean the team boss taught me how to do it and why it was so important, his attitude was "you sissy come from single seaters and don't know what real racing is"...), anyway every time a driver passed another car on track and there was a minor risk of swapping some paint the drivers where put under investigation and most of the time penalties were issued (including 25 second penalties, ie going from 1st to last). Since it was a very relaxed environment I took the liberty of asking the race director, I chap that I have known for years and who used to be a track marshal with no qualification to be a race director, why he was so obsessed with cars getting too close for comfort his answer was "of all people you ask me this question???", he as very upset, he told me that they live in fear of someone suing them for negligence, every time a car stops by the side of the track they deploy the SC (I watched 3 20 minutes races, every single one of them had at least 1 SC period, sometimes 2), every time two drivers get too close they open an investigation, his fear was that some devious lawyer (in his view every lawyer is devious :rolleyes:) would sue them... for a few seconds I though that he was going to hit me, apparently in his eyes I am no longer the happy go lucky young hopeful but I have turned into a devious and dangerous person because of my profession (please consider that I've never been a litigator, my job is to prevent people from going to court...). The fact that I was with a friend and fellow lawyer who has recently become a judge (former Supersport 600 rider, so that you get the full picture) made him even more upset.

All this to say that the problem is the attitude, in club racing this results in distorted races and the risk of being hit on your nose, in F1 things often get totally out of hand
 
Angel Problems of various nature with race stewarding are not a new phenomenon. In fact, some will say its as old as F1 itself. We have to hope with additional cameras being added at strategic positions on the car next year, added clarity shall enhance correct understanding how incidents evolve. Ethical commission (with teeth to bite) reviewing regularly steward's behavior could help as well.
 
the uneven treatment of different parties is the cornerstone of modern F1, just look at the difference between Hamilton and Rosberg over the years. I personally don't think that what Vettel did was so evil (the reason being that backing up the pack before the restart on a very long straight like Baku IMHO is criminal) and some of the reactions were totally hysterical and dis-proportioned, having said that I think that Perez punishment was fair.

My problem with F1, well with car racing in general, is that we are in a situation where every time that two cars bang wheel both drivers have to be placed under investigation and a penalty must be handed out. Yesterday afternoon I went to Imola to watch some shopkeers race, it was great fun, one of the races was the Clio Cup, by definition in the Clio Cup you bump into your fellow drivers more often than not (I did 1 race in the Clio Cup in my days, the first thing that they taught me was "knocking" the car in front... I mean the team boss taught me how to do it and why it was so important, his attitude was "you sissy come from single seaters and don't know what real racing is"...), anyway every time a driver passed another car on track and there was a minor risk of swapping some paint the drivers where put under investigation and most of the time penalties were issued (including 25 second penalties, ie going from 1st to last). Since it was a very relaxed environment I took the liberty of asking the race director, I chap that I have known for years and who used to be a track marshal with no qualification to be a race director, why he was so obsessed with cars getting too close for comfort his answer was "of all people you ask me this question???", he as very upset, he told me that they live in fear of someone suing them for negligence, every time a car stops by the side of the track they deploy the SC (I watched 3 20 minutes races, every single one of them had at least 1 SC period, sometimes 2), every time two drivers get too close they open an investigation, his fear was that some devious lawyer (in his view every lawyer is devious :rolleyes:) would sue them... for a few seconds I though that he was going to hit me, apparently in his eyes I am no longer the happy go lucky young hopeful but I have turned into a devious and dangerous person because of my profession (please consider that I've never been a litigator, my job is to prevent people from going to court...). The fact that I was with a friend and fellow lawyer who has recently become a judge (former Supersport 600 rider, so that you get the full picture) made him even more upset.

All this to say that the problem is the attitude, in club racing this results in distorted races and the risk of being hit on your nose, in F1 things often get totally out of hand


I understand them investigating cars which bang into one another, this is F1 not demolition derby after all. It's just the way the penalties are so inconsistent. Why Perez was treated so leniently when Vettel was treated so harshly makes it so ridiculous and unfair, especially when what Perez did was potentially way more dangerous. If they were both treated the same I'd understand it, even welcome it. I get very disillusioned with the sport when these things happen, I really do.

Oh and Publius, I know you're not the ambulance chasing kind of lawyer, you're far too nice for that. :)
 
Apparently Charlie Whiting doesn't think Perez hit Sirotkin on purpose. All I can say to that is "should have gone to specsavers!"

He must have been looking at something very different to what I was!
 
I understand them investigating cars which bang into one another, this is F1 not demolition derby after all. It's just the way the penalties are so inconsistent. Why Perez was treated so leniently when Vettel was treated so harshly makes it so ridiculous and unfair, especially when what Perez did was potentially way more dangerous. If they were both treated the same I'd understand it, even welcome it. I get very disillusioned with the sport when these things happen, I really do.

It seems as if the way the hand out penalties is one of the ways in which they try to influence the outcome of the WDC, I don't think that they are always biased against a certain driver or in favour of the other and more often than not they try to keep the WDC open to the open to boost viewers' numbers but it is both very unethical and detrimental in the long run because it makes F1 no longer credible. The fact that in many countries you can no longer bet on F1 speaks volumes about how credible the sport has become
 
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