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Talking points from the 2019 Singapore Grand Prix

Writer's picture: Andrew ZarbAndrew Zarb

Sebastian Vettel won in Singapore for the fifth time, and it was his first win in Formula 1 since August 2018.

The first race following the end of the European season took place yesterday in Singapore, and probably against the majority of people's expectations, Ferrari won out and secured a 1-2 finish, with German driver Sebastian Vettel earning his first win in Formula 1 since the Belgian Grand Prix of August 2018. Strategy proves crucial in race where overtaking was difficult In Singapore, the drivers race on a street circuit, just as in Monaco and also similarly in Baku. A common feature of street circuits (except maybe for Baku) is that generally overtaking on the track tends to be very difficult. Therefore, having an effective strategy may be a key opportunity for gaining track positions.

One driver in particular who made highly effective use of strategy was Sebastian Vettel, as he was the first of the top 6 drivers to pit together with Max Verstappen. This actually enabled Vettel to successfully gain track position on the then race leader Charles Leclerc who pitted a lap later, much to Leclerc's annoyance. It is fair to say that the majority of teams clearly underestimated how effective an undercut was, with Mercedes in particular misjudging this poorly, as they tried to leave Lewis Hamilton out longer in a bid to have fresher tyres towards the latter part of the race, but in doing so, they dropped down to fourth place and the new tyres were evidently not enough to help them gain back the lost positions.

In conclusion, one can say that strategy proved crucial in determining the outcome of yesterday's race - and this especially worked in Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen's favour, but it disappointingly backfired on Mercedes. McLaren show improved performance from first two post-summer break races After they enjoyed a relatively impressive opening part of the season, McLaren went into the summer break enjoying a healthy 39-point lead in fourth place ahead of Toro Rosso. However, McLaren had two disappointing races following the summer break as in Belgium they failed to score any points after Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris both retired, whilst Sainz also retired in Monza after an unsafe release from the team. In addition, Renault had a very strong showing in Monza and this applied the pressure on McLaren as the gap between these two teams had closed to just 22 points.

Therefore, McLaren needed a strong showing in Singapore to ease the pressure on them from Renault. A clash for Carlos Sainz with Renault's Nico Hulkenberg which left Sainz with a puncture certainly did not help their cause. However, the fact that Hulkenberg's team-mate Daniel Ricciardo suffered exclusion from qualifying due to infringement of a technical regulation relating to a component of the power unit which meant he had to start from the back of the grid will have helped McLaren.

Despite the recent difficulties that the team encountered, Lando Norris produced a very solid drive as he finished in seventh place which enabled the team from Woking to score 6 points, whilst Renault could only score 2 points through Hulkenberg, which therefore meant that McLaren increased their lead over Renault by 4 points to 22. After two difficult races following the summer break, Norris' seventh placed finish will have undoubtedly given McLaren a big shot in the arm. Grosjean shows little evidence to justify contract renewal

In what was arguably a surprise decision of the 2020 driver market, particularly given the poor form he showed this season, on the day before practice for the Singapore Grand Prix began, Haas decided to renew Grosjean's contract once again. Moreover, this was seen as a surprise move as Haas had a potential opportunity to sign Hulkenberg, who is a very talented driver but has lost his seat at Renault for 2020 as Esteban Ocon will be returning to Formula 1 and joining the French team. The reason that Haas decided not to pursue Hulkenberg is believed to be his sizeable wage demands.

Therefore, qualifying in 18th place, only ahead of the two Williams drivers, who have struggled all season with a very poor car was hardly a qualifying performance which convinced any doubters about Haas' decision to renew his contract. In fairness, despite not doing anything spectacular, during the race he was doing a solid job until he ended up colliding in battle with George Russell. He fortunately escaped with little damage, however, one would argue that such a collision, irrespective of who was to blame (the FIA did investigate the incident but it was deemed merely a racing one) cost Grosjean an opportunity of at least a point, especially as Antonio Giovinazzi was given an ultimately insignificant 10-second time penalty for driving too closely to a crane during a Safety Car (SC) period besides the fact that other cars ended up dropping out due to incidents.

In the end, Grosjean finished 11th, 17 seconds behind Giovinazzi (before the penalty was applied) and he finished outside the points in a weekend where it is fair to argue that he did little to justify his contract renewal.

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