Kevin Magnussen believes his tenth place at the Singapore Grand Prix was the hardest-fought point of his career so far, but isn’t expecting a repeat any time soon. Haas hadn’t scored on a Sunday since the Miami Grand Prix, but had a golden …
Kevin Magnussen believes his tenth place at the Singapore Grand Prix was the hardest-fought point of his career so far, but isn’t expecting a repeat any time soon.
Haas hadn’t scored on a Sunday since the Miami Grand Prix, but had a golden opportunity with Magnussen starting sixth and Nico Hulkenberg ninth in Singapore. As has often been the case, the race pace didn’t match the qualifying performance but Magnussen recovered from losing multiple positions at one stage to climb back into 11th and then inherit 10th when George Russell crashed on the final lap.
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“We’re pleased with that,” Magnussen said. “It was a hard fight and I don’t think I’ve ever fought so hard for a point, but I really, really wanted it and after a good qualifying it would have been so disappointing not to get anything out of it.
“It looked tough at one point, and once I had that off in Turn 1 and 2 I thought it was game over, my tires were just done.
“So we pitted for a soft and it worked really well. The pace was good, I made up a few positions and then a few people crashed and I got a point, so I’m glad I worked so hard for that.
“I just tried as hard as I could. I wanted to make sure there was nothing left out there and it paid off.”
Magnussen was particularly proud of the way Haas took advantage of the chance to score on Sunday, although he believes the track characteristics at Suzuka this coming weekend will prove painful for the team.
“We got an opportunity and we took it – we were ready to capitalize. That’s what I always say. We go into these races and we know the race pace isn’t going to be that good and tire degradation is not on our side and we’ve just got to be ready to take any opportunity there is and we did that.
“I think (Singapore) with the sharp 90-degree corners, you don’t have to combine so long. The entry phase is very sharp, so that phase is a lot shorter on this track for most of the lap, so that means we’re not as exposed in the weakness we have in the car.
“Suzuka is the opposite to that, very, very long entries and exits, it’s not really what we like so much!”
Lewis Hamilton says George Russell drove “phenomenally” in the Singapore Grand Prix and his last-lap mistake should not overshadow his teammate’s performance. Russell was running in third place chasing down leaders Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris on …
Lewis Hamilton says George Russell drove “phenomenally” in the Singapore Grand Prix and his last-lap mistake should not overshadow his teammate’s performance.
Russell was running in third place chasing down leaders Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris on fresh tires – with Hamilton in tow – when he clipped the wall at Turn 10 on the final lap and went straight on into the barrier. That promoted Hamilton into third but the seven-time world champion pointed to his own error in the same race a year ago when he locked up and hit the wall in wet conditions as a sign of how close to an incident drivers regularly are.
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“We’re all trying to be millimeter-perfect out there and it’s very, very easy to make mistakes,” Hamilton said. “It’s very easy too for any us to have been in the position that George was in. He’s been driving phenomenally all weekend, so it was really unfortunate for him – last lap – to finish that way.
“But he continues to grow, he’s continuing to improve so I know that he’s going to keep getting stronger and faster and if there’s any way I can help, I will be a part of that naturally in the next couple of years.
“I have a lot of experience, I’ve been here a long time so putting together a race is… not that it’s easy but the race is where I’m most comfortable on track. I think it’s just keeping your head down, it’s trying not to make (mistakes) … but if you look at last year for example, I made a mistake in Turn 7 and went off and crashed into the wall so it can happen to any one of us and it’s just one of those things.”
With Russell pitting out of second place and Hamilton fourth under a late Virtual Safety Car to take on fresh mediums and try to fight for the win, Hamilton says it felt like a gamble worth taking on his side but was perhaps less clear cut for his team-mate.
“We needed to take the risk, have a shot at trying to get past (Sainz and Norris) and going for the win. I think we had really good pace. So I think the team did a great job.
“I don’t know, I think George was in second at the time, and maybe if I was in his position, I probably would have stayed out and at least kept the McLaren behind. But we gave it a shot. And it was really fun to be hunting these guys down. It was just too difficult to pass in the end.”
Liam Lawson says points weren’t his priority despite the AlphaTauri replacement scoring on just his third start in the challenging Singapore grand prix. Daniel Ricciardo was present in Singapore to help in an engineering capacity as Lawson took on …
Liam Lawson says points weren’t his priority despite the AlphaTauri replacement scoring on just his third start in the challenging Singapore grand prix.
Daniel Ricciardo was present in Singapore to help in an engineering capacity as Lawson took on the tough street circuit while he continues to deputize for the injured Australian. Reaching Q3 for the first time — as the lead Red Bull driver — was a major achievement in itself but Lawson backed that up with ninth place after George Russell’s late crash, although he says the final result is not the only way to earn himself a full-time drive.
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“Maybe 20 laps to go, before Max (Verstappen) and the Red Bulls were coming back, at that point I thought we had a chance,” Lawson said. “Then I felt like it was slipping away again. I guess when Checo (Perez) and (Alex) Albon had their fight and Albon went back, that was when I felt a bit more comfortable that like we could at least score P10.
“Obviously it was a bonus… I mean not a bonus to see somebody crash out for George, but for us obviously it means we get an extra point.
“It’s a goal, but to be honest, I’m just trying to maximize every race, every session and finish as high as we can. So (on Sunday) that was points, which is great. We’ll try and do even more hopefully in the future for… if I get the chance to drive again.”
Lawson looked physically drained after what is the toughest fitness test on the calendar, and admits that was one area where he struggled, as well as executing his race start.
“It was tough. Obviously this place is extremely tough on the body, especially when you’re fighting the car a lot. It makes it that bit extra difficult, but happy to survive the race.
“For me, the start I need to get on top of, because it’s now two weekends in a row that I’ve botched the start, basically, and lost a couple of positions. So it’s just making our life more difficult. So that’s really the biggest loss of the race and that’s on my part.
“For the rest, I think we extracted everything out of the car. We didn’t quite have the race pace. To be honest, we felt going into the race it was going to be a little bit difficult, because we felt this on Friday as well. But we tried to correct it as much as we could. So, I think we maximized.”
Team principal Fred Vasseur says Ferrari’s recovery since early in the season is something to be proud of after continuing to build confidence with victory in the Singapore Grand Prix. Ferrari struggled in Saudi Arabia in just the second round of …
Team principal Fred Vasseur says Ferrari’s recovery since early in the season is something to be proud of after continuing to build confidence with victory in the Singapore Grand Prix.
Ferrari struggled in Saudi Arabia in just the second round of the season, finishing over half a minute off the pace in sixth and seventh, but Vasseur says the reaction to that has been impressive, with it culminating in his first win as team principal courtesy of Carlos Sainz at the Marina Bay Street Circuit on Sunday.
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“Honestly, it was a strange feeling for me on the pit wall, because I was not too stressed the last couple of laps,” Vasseur said. “I was much more stressed when I watch back the last couple of laps when I was out of the race than during the race, and perhaps that’s the feeling that Carlos was really under control of the situation.
“On the podium it was a bit emotional because it was the first one. But at this stage, I was more thinking about what we did from Jeddah. Jeddah was a tough weekend for us, and we had a very good recovery after Jeddah, good teamwork. I think we built up the confidence step by step and the pace. I’m more than proud for the job done by the factory and the team guys.
“For sure it’s difficult, if you compare with Zandvoort, to imagine that we would be in such good shape in Singapore. But I think it’s also linked to the fact that we had a good weekend at Monza, from lap one, FP1.
“We built up the confidence in Monza, and Singapore is also the consequence of this one. The fact that we have Carlos so quick at the beginning of the weekend was also very helpful to us, and he did a very good job from the first lap to the last one. And with Charles (Leclerc), we had (good information) and it’s the best way to improve.”
While much of the race went to plan for Ferrari as it started Leclerc on soft tires to help him jump George Russell off the line and be able to protect race leader Sainz, Vasseur was impressed with the way the Spaniard used Lando Norris in the closing stages without his teammate nearby.
“It was the idea of Carlos. I don’t want to say (anything against McLaren) but he knew that he was more at risk with Mercedes than with Norris. With Norris we had the same tires and almost the same pace from lap one, and we were not really at risk with Norris except if we lost the tire. It was a clever move from Carlos to keep Norris in the DRS.”
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner insists a technical directive was not the cause of the difficulties faced in the Singapore Grand Prix, as the team’s run of winning every race this season came to an end. Max Verstappen qualified 11th and …
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner insists a technical directive was not the cause of the difficulties faced in the Singapore Grand Prix, as the team’s run of winning every race this season came to an end.
Max Verstappen qualified 11th and Sergio Perez 13th as Red Bull struggled heavily on Saturday, leaving it out of contention on a track that is tough to overtake on. The challenging weekend coincided with a technical directive from the FIA that targeted flexible bodywork – specifically front and rear wings – coming into force, but Horner says that’s no the explanation for Red Bull’s run of wins ending.
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“It’s all engineering stuff,” Horner said. “There’s no silver bullets in this business. I know all of you would love to blame the TD, but unfortunately we can’t even blame that because it has not changed a single component on our car. So I think circuit characteristics are different here and we haven’t optimized the car in the right window to extract the most.”
Elaborating on how Red Bull viewed its weekend, Horner said the race pace was actually far more competitive than the qualifying speed, but strategic gambles didn’t pay off.
“I think, firstly, we understood a lot more in the race and the pace of the car came much more back to what we expected. We knew coming here we expected to have closer competition but it took us a bit by surprise how just how far out we were on Friday.
“We were just not in the right operating window for the car, particularly over a single lap. When you are not there, the tires feel horrible, everything just doesn’t work. So I think we got a very good steer in the race, we saw, particularly in the latter stint, that Max’s pace was very strong.
“Unfortunately, in the race, by starting on the hard, we took a strategic gamble and the best way of that race paying us off was if we had an early safety car or if you get a safety car later on into the race. But the lap that the safety car came out on was strategically the worst possible lap for the strategy that we were on, because it gave the lead cars — the cars ahead of us — a free stop, at the same time giving us track position but making us take the restart with tires that were very hard to heat up again having done well over 20 laps. So then Max was picked off by the guys that had the free stop and then we had to take a pit stop that was in normal racing conditions, which then dropped you another 23 seconds behind.
“With that all considered, the recovery that we had, and the pace that we had – particularly in the latter stages of the race — to be 0.2s behind Charles (Leclerc) at the finish line, was a strong race.
“At some point we were going to get beaten. Fifteen in a row is an unbelievable record and we have only been beaten once prior to (Singapore) since last July.
“I have to congratulate Ferrari, particularly Carlos, who drove a very strong race and deserved to win. At the same time, we have narrowed in on both championships, which we have a chance of winning the constructors’ championship in Japan next weekend.”
Lando Norris thought he’d thrown away his second place in the Singapore Grand Prix when he clipped the wall moments before George Russell did too and crashed, the McLaren driver admitting he never felt he could beat Carlos Sainz to victory. Russell …
Lando Norris thought he’d thrown away his second place in the Singapore Grand Prix when he clipped the wall moments before George Russell did too and crashed, the McLaren driver admitting he never felt he could beat Carlos Sainz to victory.
Russell hit the wall just before turning in at Turn 10, causing him to go straight on at that corner and lose third place on the final lap. Russell was trying to put pressure on Norris who had been closely following leader Sainz throughout the latter stages, but the McLaren driver says he knew he had no chance of overtaking the Spaniard and was instead focused on protecting second place before he too clipped the same wall directly ahead of Russell.
“George struggled to overtake me when he had a five-, six-tenth second per lap advantage, so the chance of me getting ahead of Carlos with a maybe one-tenth advantage, there was no chance,” Norris said. “I think Carlos played it smart. There was no need for me to try and attack him.
“The more I attacked him, probably the more vulnerable I would have been from both the guys behind. I wouldn’t be sitting here and wouldn’t have been on the podium if I had played it different. Stressful last few laps, for sure.
“I think we both knew as soon as the VSC came out, we had to put in a stint and a half and try and open up the gap as big as possible. They still caught us. Then it was about not making any mistakes. I knew with George, he was going to pressure me a lot, he did. I had to defend quite a bit into 15, 14. That’s when Carlos backed off after that, when there was a little bit of a gap, and allowed me to get the DRS again which was very helpful. I think we together played it in a smart way to get the Mercs to stay behind us.
“The last lap then I had a bit more of a breather. I hit the wall where George also hit the wall, but I hit it with the front, so I kind of panicked a bit, thinking I’d maybe just messed it all up. It damaged the steering — it was off center, but luckily it was nothing more than that. An amazing race, stressful race from start to finish. A lot of management, but perfectly executed.”
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Although Sainz was playing with the gap between the top two cars to ensure Norris had DRS and was able to keep the Mercedes drivers at bay, Norris says the McLaren’s performance was marginally better than Ferrari’s on Sunday.
“I think our pace was strong, honestly. I think initially I started to catch him myself. I think our pace was a bit better towards the end of stints. I think the Ferrari was a bit better in the initial part of the stints. I think I would have caught up to him ever so slightly anyway. And I think I would have got into DRS.
“It was more when there was a gap, when I was most under pressure from George, that’s when he helped me out. I guess it helped me keep him from not getting under pressure, from not getting attacked, because I’m sure if I’d been overtaken, Carlos would have been under more pressure too. They drove an amazing race, both George and Lewis (Hamilton), and of course Carlos drove a great race to not have any mistakes, not have any lockups and finish where we did.”
George Russell says his final-lap retirement from the Singapore Grand Prix after clipping a wall was “such a pathetic mistake” and “truly heartbreaking” but that he is trying to overcome it quickly. Mercedes opted to take advantage of a late Virtual …
George Russell says his final-lap retirement from the Singapore Grand Prix after clipping a wall was “such a pathetic mistake” and “truly heartbreaking” but that he is trying to overcome it quickly.
Mercedes opted to take advantage of a late Virtual Safety Car to pit Russell out of second place and Lewis Hamilton from fourth, in an attempt to chase down Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris for the victory. The top two were holding Russell at bay when he clipped the wall turning in at Turn 10 on the final lap, causing him to crash out of third place and bringing a surprising end to a race he felt he could have won.
“Very strange race. With Carlos managing the pace for the whole duration, it was quite difficult to keep the concentration because we were driving 1.5 seconds off the pace,” Russell said. “But it was only natural for him to do that, with the tire advantage we had. If he went any faster, it would’ve only given us the opportunity.
“We obviously then got fortunate with the (VSC) and that was when the race really turned on its head, got really exciting. Was really pushing flat out, but again Carlos did a great job just to manage the gap, with the DRS with Lando — very smart of him to do that.
“I had half a chance with Lando — half a car’s length different and I think we’d have won the race, because I would’ve got ahead of Lando and then Carlos would’ve been stuck with no DRS and we’d have flew by him. Instead, we end the race in the wall.
“No idea what happened, how that happened. Probably a lack of concentration — maybe frustration knowing that that was the last lap, the opportunity was gone. And a one-centimeter mistake has sort of clouded the whole weekend.”
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Although Russell was struggling to overcome the error in the immediate aftermath of the race, he says he wants to try and find a way of focusing on the way he had driven up to that point to be in with a chance of victory.
“In the moment you just want to curl up in a ball and be with nobody. It’s the most horrendous feeling in the world, when you’re so physically drained, mentally drained, missed out on an opportunity of victory, and then to make such a mistake. It is truly heartbreaking.
“But, I’ve got to be honest now I’m standing here an hour later. It’s been such an amazing weekend. I truly think I am driving better than I’ve ever driven. Qualifying was amazing yesterday. The race was great. I felt confident, I felt comfortable. And I’m not going to let a mistake of two centimeters knock me down.
“So I’ll have a tough night, probably a tough morning, but then just put it behind me and go again. But I can only apologize to the team because they obviously deserved more. But, yeah, s**t happens.
“I’m not just going to brush it off, for sure not. But it was such a nothing of a mistake. If I spun off or had a lock-up and ended up in the wall, I would be feeling very different. But to clip the wall on the last lap is just such a pathetic mistake. It’s why it sort of feels so strange right now.
“It’s probably that lack of concentration, as I said — it’s the last lap and I knew the opportunity was gone. Goes to show you just need to stay on it, doesn’t matter what the scenario is. (But) a lot of positives.”
Carlos Sainz says his approach of slowing down the cars behind to prevent them being able to get a strategic advantage over him “worked to perfection” as he won the Singapore Grand Prix. Mercedes saved two sets of mediums tires for its drivers to …
Carlos Sainz says his approach of slowing down the cars behind to prevent them being able to get a strategic advantage over him “worked to perfection” as he won the Singapore Grand Prix.
Mercedes saved two sets of mediums tires for its drivers to open up pit stop options in case of safety car interruptions at Marina Bay, but Sainz bunched up the field to prevent gaps opening up to pit into. In the end, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton took the opportunity to make a second stop during a Virtual Safety Car but Sainz kept Lando Norris between himself and the charging Mercedes pair to hold on in a tense finish.
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“An incredible feeling, and an incredible weekend,” Sainz said. “I want to thank everyone in Ferrari for making this huge effort to turnaround and manage to win this season after a tricky beginning. But now we nailed a weekend, we nailed the race, we did everything we had to do, we did it perfect and we brought home a P1 that I’m sure all of Italy, all Ferrari’s going to be happy today.
“Given our limitations with tire wear and degradation, it was all about managing the beginning of the stints to make sure I made it to the target lap that we wanted to do on each compound. Obviously a safety car forced us to pit even earlier than we wanted, and I knew it was going to be a long stint on hard.
“George, I had to keep him slowing down to make sure I didn’t give him a safety car or a medium tire opportunity, and it worked to perfection. It was just quite tight at the end, but we gave Lando a bit of DRS to help him and then in the end, we made it (to) P1.”
While he jokes it was to help Norris, the DRS train created an added layer of protection for Sainz that he says showed how he had the capacity to think about the best way to win the race.
“I felt under control, to be honest. I always felt like I had the headspace and the pace in hand to do whatever I wanted to do,” Sainz said. “I’m not gonna lie — you’re under pressure and you obviously are very close to making any kind of mistake, but I felt under control. I felt like I could manage well, and we brought it home. That was the best feeling, you know. I am over the moon right now.”
Carlos Sainz claimed victory in the Singapore Grand Prix after a thrilling late Mercedes chase fell short. The Ferrari driver’s triumph ended Red Bull Racing’s undefeated streak for 2023 and the team’s hopes of F1’s first perfect season. Pole-getter …
Carlos Sainz claimed victory in the Singapore Grand Prix after a thrilling late Mercedes chase fell short. The Ferrari driver’s triumph ended Red Bull Racing’s undefeated streak for 2023 and the team’s hopes of F1’s first perfect season.
Pole-getter Sainz had nailed his getaway and spent the rest of the evening setting a slow pace around Marina Bay to ensure his preferred one-stop strategy would work.
Charles Leclerc had put himself up to second at the start to act as his teammate’s chief defender against front-row starter George Russell, but an early safety car — for a Logan Sargeant wall-banging incident on lap 19 — dropped the Monegasque down to sixth, leaving Sainz vulnerable to Mercedes.
Sainz leads the field at the start. Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Russell tried to harry Sainz into an error, but the Spaniard was astute in his defense, giving the Briton no opportunity to show him a wheel.
By lap 44, with 18 laps remaining, Russell had had enough, and Mercedes brought him and fourth-placed Lewis Hamilton into the pits for a last-gasp switch to a new set of mediums. They fell to fourth and fifth and 18 seconds and 23 seconds off the lead respectively, but their significant tire life and compound offsets helped them slice through the leading pack.
By laps 53 and 54 the Mercedes duo were past Leclerc into third and fourth, and with five laps remaining they were within a second of Lando Norris in second place and targeting victory.
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It should have been an easy pass, but Sainz tactically slowed to keep the Briton within DRS range to give him a crucial defensive tool against the faster cars behind — and give himself a useful buffer.
For five laps Sainz delicately strung along his three pursuers, occasionally growing his margin to more than a second before drawing his rivals back into the DRS train to ensure they never had the chance to race at their own pace. It was a tactical masterclass for the cerebral Spaniard, who ground out a fraught 0.8s victory.
“An incredible feeling and incredible weekend,” Sainz said. “We nailed the weekend, we nailed the race. Everything that we had to do we did perfectly.
“It was quite tight at the end, but we gave Lando a bit of DRS to help him, and in the end we made it P1. I’m over the moon right now.”
The battle for second place ended in Norris’s favor on the final lap when Russell struck the outside wall braking for the left-handed Turn 10. It sent him spearing into the barriers and out of the race and let Norris off the hook.
“Carlos was very generous trying to help me get DRS,” Norris said. “It helped my race; it also helped his.
“We knew it was going to be tough as soon as Mercedes boxed. We held them off. We did everything we needed to do and more. Super happy.”
Hamilton capitalized on his teammate’s error to collect the final podium place, ensuring Mercedes saw at least some return on its strategic gamble.
“We rolled the dice this weekend … to do what we did today,” he said. “The team did a really amazing job today to help get us back up there.
“Extremely unfortunate for George, but we were pushing so hard to catch those guys and our tires were so hot. I know he’ll bounce back.”
Leclerc ended a subdued fourth, his race ruined by the safety car that took him out of the lead fight. He held off the recovering Max Verstappen in a drag over the line by just 0.264s.
Verstappen had qualified a lowly 11th but had set himself up for a contra strategy starting on the hard tires to try to put himself in the frame for victory. He was up to eighth after six laps and was told to settle into place to play the long game, having started on the hard tire with the intention of offsetting the rest of the pack.
But the long-shot strategy was undone by Sargeant nosing the barrier at Turn 8 on lap 19. The American extricated himself and returned to the pits with his front wing stuck underneath the car, but a safety car was required to clear the track of debris.
Everyone bar Verstappen, teammate Sergio Perez and Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas — all having started on the hard tire — made their mandatory pit stops onto hards with a view to racing to the end.
Verstappen took the restart in second behind Sainz, but warm-up was poor on his 20-lap-old tires, and he sunk helplessly to sixth after six laps of racing.
“It’s like driving on ice,” he radioed to his team, but he was committed to waiting for another safety car to rescue his recovery.
It never came, and on lap 40 the team called the championship leader in for his sole stop, dropping him to 15th and 45s off the lead. From there, fifth was the best he could achieve — his worst result of the reason.
Pierre Gasly headed the midfield in sixth after teammate Esteban Ocon retired with a suspected gearbox failure and Fernando Alonso uncharacteristically spun off the road at Turn 14.
Alonso’s error moved Oscar Piastri up to seventh, while Perez, who had dropped to last after his own pit stop, recovered to eighth.
Perez, however, faces a post-race investigation for causing a collision with Alex Albon that put the Thai driver in the wall at Turn 10, costing Williams a shot at the points.
Liam Lawson drove an excellent race to score his first points in just his third grand prix. It also marks the first occasion the second AlphaTauri car has scored points this season.
Kevin Magnussen ground out 10th place ahead of the recovering Albon, scoring Haas’s first points since May’s Miami GP. Albon finished ahead of Zhou Guanyu, Nico Hulkenberg, Sargeant and Alonso.
Valtteri Bottas retired with a technical issue, while Yuki Tsunoda’s race lasted just one lap after contact with Perez.
Lance Stroll will not race in tonight’s Singapore Grand Prix after his massive crash in qualifying on Saturday. The Canadian was trying to make it through to Q2 when he lost control in the high-speed final corner and hit the barrier heavily on the …
Lance Stroll will not race in tonight’s Singapore Grand Prix after his massive crash in qualifying on Saturday.
The Canadian was trying to make it through to Q2 when he lost control in the high-speed final corner and hit the barrier heavily on the outside of the track, severely damaging the car.
Although Stroll was able to climb out unaided and was subsequently cleared and released from the medical center, Aston Martin says he is still sore after the impact and with such a big repair job for the team the decision has been made to withdraw the car.
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“The whole team are relieved that Lance was able to step out of the car after yesterday’s accident – however, he is still feeling the after-effects of such a high-impact crash,” team principal Mike Krack said. “Our priority now is that he makes a full and speedy recovery.
“Together, we have decided that he will sit out this evening’s race and instead focus fully on returning to the cockpit for next weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix.”
Stroll will not be replaced in Singapore as his withdrawal came after qualifying and a replacement would need to have taken part in a practice or qualifying session to be able to drive. That leaves 19 cars on the grid for tonight’s race, and just one Aston Martin with Fernando Alonso starting from seventh.
The only race Stroll has missed in his seven-year Formula 1 career to date is the 2020 Eifel Grand Prix when he was withdrawn due to COVID, and he raced in Bahrain earlier this year despite fracturing both wrists and a toe a few weeks previously.
