In Pictures: Singapore 2022
After a two-week break, the F1 Family arrived at magical Singapore for the original Night Race. It was hot and humid, not a big surprise there, but with the added rain forecast for the weekend, everything was set for a tough, tough race.
Lots of talks in the paddock about possible cost cap breaches in 2021 from two teams. If confirmed, penalties could shake up the F1 community.
FRIDAY
FP1 started with Charles Leclerc reporting something wrong with his F1-75. He was asked to come into the pits and the Ferrari mechanics went to work. Meanwhile, Max Verstappen went to the top of the charts. The session went on as expected until Lance Stroll hit the wall, damaging his Aston Martin and stopping on track, hence the first red flag of the weekend was shown. Practice resumed and for the last few minutes most drivers came out on soft tires, with Lewis Hamilton setting the fastest lap of the session, the first time in 2022 he had led a session. Then came Verstappen, Leclerc, Perez, and Russell, the top five.
Is Mercedes back? Well, we were going to find out in due time…
Under the lights, Practice 2 started somewhat as Practice 1 ended. Mercedes was on top, although Leclerc’s Ferrari has been worked on, as well as both Red Bulls.
Having lost more than twenty minutes, Verstappen came out and immediately started doing fast laps on hard tires. A few minutes later, Perez came out, then Leclerc. And after forty minutes, it was Sainz ahead of Leclerc, Russell, Hamilton, and Ocon. Then a bit of a scary moment when Gasly’s AlphaTauri caught fire in the pit lane. The Frenchman jumped out as flames were coming out of the air cover.
In the end, it was Sainz the fastest, with Leclerc, Russell, Verstappen, and Hamilton the top five.
SATURDAY
It was hot and wet, very wet. It was so wet that the W Series qualifying session had to be red flagged as the circuit was filled with standing water. But this is Formula 1 and since it wasn’t raining as much as it was earlier on, FP3 started on time, but with the pit lane closed…
The rain stopped, and many track workers started sweeping standing water away, and with about 1/2 session still left on the clock, cars finally came out. Oddly enough, there was no rush to get out, although everyone tried to gain as much information as possible since conditions for the race seemed to be just about the same, but at night.
After a crazy and short session, Charles Leclerc set the fastest lap from Max Verstappen. Sainz, Alonso, and Perez completed the top five.
QUALIFYING
Talks about cost cap breaches continued and escalated somewhat as team managers became rather more vocal about culprits and penalties. The media did not waste any time stirring things up even more.
Q1
The circuit was damped so drivers came out on intermediates to try to handle the tricky conditions. And as expected, the fastest laps were between Ferrari, Mercedes, and Red Bull, with Leclerc, Verstappen, and Hamilton trading top spots a few times during the session.
FUN FACT: The intermediate tires can displace 30 liters of water per second at 300 kph.
The track was drying very quickly but still too damp for slick tires. And after arduous 18 minutes, Bottas, Ricciardo, Ocon, Albon, and Latifi were knocked out of Qualifying.
Q2
The 15-minute long Q2 session was even more complicated than Q1 as the track was still damped but drying very quickly. For the last few minutes, both Aston Martin and Zhou’s Alfa Romeo risked with slick tires, but the gamble did not pay off. So, the knocked-out drivers were Russell, Stroll, Schumacher, Vettel, and Zhou.
Q3
As Q2 demonstrated, it wasn’t dry enough for slick tires, and the only driver with new inters was Red Bull’s Sergio Perez. And so, it began…
Anyhow, slick tires it was for all, except Tsunoda and Magnussen, still on inters. For the final minutes, everyone was on slick tires, but what a masterclass driving from the seven-time world champion, finding grip where others tumble.
What a fantastic last minute! The track was ever-evolving, and in the end, it was Pole Position for Charles Leclerc and Ferrari! Behind him, came Perez, Hamilton, Sainz, Alonso, Norris, Gasly, Verstappen, Magnussen, and Tsunoda.
Odd call by Red Bull asking Verstappen to abort in what would have been pole position. It was later confirmed that his RB18 lacked the necessary fuel to comply with the sample required by the FIA from all cars.
““It’s been a very, very tricky qualifying. In Q3 we didn’t know what to do, we went for the soft at the last minute. I made a mistake in my last lap, so I didn’t think I’d get pole, but it was just enough. Considering the Friday we had, we recovered well. We don’t have much data for the race but I’m sure we can win.””
WEIRD STAT: No driver has won this race from an even starting grid position yet…
SUNDAY
The day started hot and humid, then, about one hour before the Grand Prix start time, the rain came in hard, and because of the circuit’s nature, water is not displaced as fast as needed, meaning race delays.
Singapore was Fernando Alonso’s 350 Grand Prix start.
Mercedes fitted a new Power Unit in George Russell’s W13 outside of Parc Ferme, resulting in a pit lane start for the British driver.
302,000 people attended the Singapore Grand Prix weekend. A record for that race.
Finally, and after more than an hour delay, the race started, and it was Sergio Perez getting to the first corner ahead of polesitter Leclerc. Behind them, the championship leader had lots of tire spin, losing four positions. On the contrary, Vettel had a fantastic start, overtaking five cars and getting to P8.
On lap 7, Latifi forced Zhou to the wall, who ended up breaking his front suspension. Safety Car was deployed, ending three laps later.
On the restart, Verstappen was finally able to overtake Vettel for P8. Up ahead, places remained as they were before the Safety Car. Of course, there was no DRS in those conditions, making overtaking that much harder than usual.
On lap 22, Fernando Alonso retired his Alpine with engine problems, a VSC was deployed, lasting just one lap. Verstappen passed Gasly rather easily and was now P6.
On lap 26, Alex Albon went straight, crashing his Williams into the barrier at turn 8, breaking his front wing. Another VSC was deployed. Albon came into the pits for a new nose but ended up retiring from the race. One lap later, Albon’s wing was cleared from the track and racing resumed. Two laps later, Ocon went off at turn 13, under a massive cloud of smoke. Another retirement and yet another VSC.
Then, on lap 33, Hamilton went into the wall at turn 7, but was able to continue, albeit coming out between Norris and Verstappen. Hamilton’s front wing was damaged and hanging by a thread in the W13.
Lap 35, Medium tires for Leclerc, but it was a slow stop, losing a bit of time and coming out third, behind Perez and Sainz. On that same lap, Hamilton came in for a new nose and new medium tires, as most other drivers. Next lap, Perez came in for his set of slick tires, and what an excellent stop. Coming out in first also. That same lap, Tsunoda crashed his AlphaTauri heavily at turn 10, Safety Car was deployed. Interestingly, Bottas and Ricciardo went for soft tires instead of the mediums of everybody else.
As expected, the lap chart changed to time limit. A bit more than 35 minutes left to the end.
On the restart, Verstappen tried to overtake Norris but had a huge moment, blocking his tires and going straight ahead at turn 10. He was forced to pit again to change his tires, coming out in P14. Meanwhile, Russell tried to pass Schumacher but ended up touching rear tires, a puncture for both.
Up ahead, what a fight between Leclerc and Perez. And as everyone was on slick tires, DRS was enabled. What a brilliant drive from both leaders, sliding everywhere. What a show it was! But then, with about five minutes left in the race things cooled down and, in the end, at 11:11:11 PM, the chequered flag was waved in Singapore, as car number 11 crossed the line to take victory. A well-deserved win for Sergio Perez. Charles Leclerc finished second and Carlos Sainz was third.
Carnage was the name of the game as six drivers were unable to finish the race: Tsunoda, Ocon, Albon, Alonso, Latifi, and Zhou.
After the race, Sergio Perez was investigated for several Safety Car infringements during the race. In the end, the stewards decided on one reprimand, one warning, and a 5-second time penalty. Neither changed the results.
QUOTES FROM THE PODIUM
““I am so happy to get this victory for me and my Team, it means a lot to me. I haven’t been on the podium the last couple of races but I was always working under the radar and making big noises behind the scenes, so I am super proud of the performance today. Mentally it was tough and you had to stay alert for the whole race. It was super tricky in the conditions out there today and people underestimate how difficult it is to drive in those, going through the final sector was so hard. There was a bit of miscommunication with the safety car I think, he was going really fast in places where I couldn’t keep up with him and then slowing where I could go fast. We were driving on slicks in the wet trying to keep the temperature and that is difficult. When they told me I was under investigation I just pushed like qualifying for 15 laps to get as big a gap as possible to Charles.””
““Our pace was really good today so it’s a shame to finish second. We had some wheel spin at the start and didn’t get away as well as Checo (Perez). That put us on the back foot. I pushed to put pressure on Checo but my front tires got a bit too warm and he started pulling away. As I’ve already said, I want to use these last races to improve our execution of races and I think that we made a step in the right direction today.””
““It was quite a strange race for me to be honest. I had a good start and managed to get Lewis, but for some reason I struggled with pace in the first stint with the Intermediates and only towards the end of race did I manage to recover it. But by then it was already too late. We need to look into it because I’ve been quick all weekend and today I lost all feeling with the car.
On a positive note, we managed to do a race without mistakes in these tricky conditions, which was not easy today, bringing home a solid result with both cars on the podium. We’ll go at it again in Japan next week.””
