Singapore Grand Prix Review
Serigo Pérez took his third win of the season in a chaotic Singapore grand prix
Where he held off Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to take the win.
The Mexican driver stopped his teammate Max Verstappen from taking his second championship.
He did this by leading from start to finish to take top points.
It was a race of survival where the saying first you have to finish was true with six cars unable to finish the race
Meanwhile Verstappen had one of his more disappointing races of the season, where he only took seventh place after battling up the pack.
The weather played a huge factor in the race because it very much decreases the overtaking opportunities on the track. This is because before the race there was a massive downpour of rain that result in the race being delayed by an hour. This means that the race was started on the intermediate tyre. As the race went on the track developed enough to allow the cars to go on to slick tyres. Yet, George Russell took a risk and went on to the slick tyres a lot earlier than the other cars. This risk never paid off with the Mercedes driver losing the pace to the other cars on the track. Once the track was in the right condition for slick tyres, you could still see the drivers struggling to overtake. This because even though the racing line was ready for dry tyres, the rest of the track wasn’t. This meant that whenever a car went off the racing line to overtake there was not enough grip to make the overtake stick. This sometimes resulted in drivers going off the track when attempting an over. Examples of this is that Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton both going off the track when trying to make a overtake. This shows how tricky the conditions were to overtake in because two of the best drivers on the grid struggled to keep it on the track.
It was a big win for Sergio Pérez because it remained people how good he can be after a run of poor form in the last three races. There was a lot of pressure from the media when it came to talking about Pérez’s is form going into the Singapore grand prix. Which Pérez seem to acknowledge after the race by saying “This win is super special for me because I’ve had a bit of a rough patch in the last few races. He then talks about the media where he said, “The media in F1 makes it a lot bigger maybe because I’m Mexican, and if I’m not two races in a row in the podium then I’m having the worst season ever and Red Bull should drop me". This shows how important of a win this was for the Mexican driver because he felt like he silenced some of his critiques.
It was difficult weekend for the defending world champion Max Verstappen. Where fuel management problems stopped him from taking a dominated pole. This means he would have put in a lap where he would have been a second quicker than Leclerc. However, he was unable to complete the lap due to not having enough fuel in the car to pass the FIA exception. This then meant he start out of position in eighth. Then as a result of the weather Verstappen was unable to make his through the pack as he would of liked.
It is important to say that McLaren took a good result. Finishing in fourth and fifth, which then result in them passing Alpine in the championship