After the Lewis Hamilton stole victory from Kimi Raikkonen at the Italian Grand Prix in the Prancing Horses spiritual home and extended his championship lead to 30 points, round 15 of the 2018 FIA Formula 1 World Championship returns to the streets of Marina Bay in Singapore under the lights for the Formula 1 2018 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix. This will be the eleventh running of the Singapore Grand Prix as part of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship.

 

 

A look at the Marina Bay Street Circuit

 

 

The Marina Bay Street Circuit is a street circuit around Singapore’s Marina Bay in a harbour-side similar in style to the Circuit de Monaco (Monaco Grand Prix). The circuit is designed by KBR.inc, a modification of the original one first proposed by Hermann Tilke.

 

It is a twisty circuit that is the slowest in Formula 1 running at normal race distance above 305 kilometres (190 miles) which features walls leading to frequent safety cars, regularly nudging the race distance above two hours. The bumpiness, heavy braking zones, lack of daylight and humidity makes the 61-lap race very demanding for both man and machine. It has some 90-degree turns, but is pretty variable, featuring technical sections and quick direction changes. Overtaking is mostly done at the end of the first sector, where top speeds are at their highest. Runoff areas exist at the end of the long straights but are very short by Formula 1 standards. At most parts of the circuit, cars run very close to the walls.

 

The Marina Bay Street Circuit has undergone a couple of changes since being part of the Formula 1 Calendar since 2008 including a slight re-profiling of the circuit in 2009 where turns 1, 2 and 3 were modified to aid overtaking and also turn 10 (formerly Singapore Sling) where high kerbs caused many accidents. In 2013, a configuration change of the “Singapore Sling” turn 10 with a single apex left hand bend which has seen corner entry speeds up to 40km/h faster. This year it has undergone minor changes ahead of this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix, the modifications run from turn 11 to 13; drivers will still turn right at turn 11 but it will now kink to the left slightly on entry with the track shifting to the left-hand side of Fullerton Road. This will change the profile of turn 12, as drivers will now use the other side of Anderson Bridge while the turn 13 hairpin has been widened by a metre to increase overtaking opportunities.

 

While in Monza the cars ran in a low downforce configuration, Singapore requires a high downforce configuration. The cars run at 46% full throttle over a lap and the circuit is one the least fuel-efficient races of the year due to its stop-start nature. Marina Bay is also very tough on brakes, with about a quarter of the lap spent braking and while wear is not a major difficulty, problems are caused by the temperatures the brakes reach due to a lack of opportunities for cooling. After the power and speed circuits of Spa and Monza, Singapore will require different attributes which could pay in the favour of both Ferrari and Red Bull and bring them a lot closer to Mercedes.

 

The Marina Bay Street Circuit is 5.063km (3.147mi) in length with 23 corners and runs in an anti-clockwise direction.

 

Race distance is 308.828km (191.897mi) in length with 61 laps in total.

 

Lewis Hamilton holds the fastest lap record with a 1:45.008 set at last year’s event in his Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport F1 W08 EQ Power+.

 

Sebastian Vettel holds the record for most victories at the Singapore Grand Prix with four.

 

Scuderia Ferrari, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport and Red Bull Racing are the most successful constructors at the Singapore Grand Prix tied with three victories each.

 

The Last Five Winners

 

 

2017: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1. 2016: Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG F1. 2015: Sebastian Vettel, Scuderia Ferrari. 2014: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1. 2013: Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull Racing.

 

Tyres

 

 

Pirelli will be bringing with them to Marina Bay, the softest compounds in its range; the pink-side walled Hyper-Softs, the purple-branded P Zero Ultra-Soft and the yellow-marked P Zero Soft tyre along with the green-marked Intermediate and blue-branded full wet tyre in case of rain.

 

Ferrari have opted for a more aggressive approach compared to it’s title rivals Mercedes at the Singapore Grand Prix.

 

This race sees the third appearance of the hypersofts in the season, following its use in Monaco and Canada.

 

Ferrari have given Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen nine sets of the hypersoft tyres along with three sets of ultrasofts and one set of softs.

 

Mercedes have gone with a more conservative approach to it’s rivals selecting for both Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, three sets of the softs, four sets of the ultrasofts and six sets of the hypersoft rubber.

 

The Silver Arrows have chosen less hypersofts compared to the entire field. The other teams which matched Ferrari in selecting nine sets of hypers were Force India and Haas.

 

McLaren, Renault, Sauber and Toro Rosso have selected seven sets of the hypers while Red Bull and Williams have chosen seven.

 

McLaren, Red Bull, Renault and Sauber have followed Mercedes’ approach choosing three sets of softs.

 

Sauber has selected three sets of softs for Charles Leclerc whilst team-mate Marcus Ericsson will have two sets of the more durable softer tyre available.

 

Also joining Ferrari on one sets of softs are Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly and Brendon Hartley, Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen and Williams’ Sergey Sirotkin.

 

ICYMI: Italian GP Rewind – Hamilton snatches victory from Raikkonen in Monza

 

 

Lewis Hamilton survived an opening lap tangle with title-rival Sebastian Vettel at the Variante Della Roggia Chicane to win the Italian Grand Prix by snatching the victory from the other Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen.

 

Hamilton overtook Vettel’s Ferrari around the outside into the second chicane on the opening lap, and the latter ran wide, contacted the Mercedes, spun and fell to the rear.

 

Vettel made a strong recovery to finish fourth behind the sister Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas, after a five second-time penalty relegated Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to fifth.

 

Polesitter Raikkonen held his lead at the start of the Grand Prix in-front of the Ferrari faithful as he resisted pressure from his team-mate and a lock up into the Variante Rettifilo Chicane, before Hamilton got a great slipstream behind the two Ferraris and attacked Vettel around the outside heading into the Variante Della Roggia Chicane.

 

Hamilton kept wheel-to-wheel with Vettel, who drifted into the side of the Mercedes and spun out.

 

Vettel dropped to the rear and had to pit for a new front wing, which was damaged in the tangle as well, but was given a lifeline thanks to the deployment of the safety car.

 

This was due to Brendon Hartley pulling off track moments after the start of the Grand Prix, having been squeezed on the run down into turn one and his front-right destroyed on his Honda-powered STR13.

 

The race went back to green four laps in, with Hamilton getting a good run on Raikkonen at the restart and passing the Ferrari into the Variante Rettifilo Chicane, before Raikkonen fought back with a great counter at the Variante Della Roggia Chicane.

 

For the rest of the first stint, Hamilton slowly fell out of DRS range, but Raikkonen’s gap never increased above two seconds before the Finn pitted from the lead on lap 20.

 

Mercedes were waiting for Hamilton to stop but the Briton opted not to and remained on track eight laps longer, emerging five seconds behind the Finn.

 

However, Mercedes decided to keep Bottas on track with the Finn trying to pass Verstappen, who just pitted and emerged in third place.

 

This meant Bottas could hold up Raikkonen into his championship-leading team-mate Hamilton, and within three laps of the Briton pitting, he was in DRS range of Raikkonen on eight laps younger soft tyres.

 

Bottas lead the Italian Grand Prix until pitting on lap 36, releasing Raikkonen and Hamilton to fight for the victory.

 

Hamilton became very close to Raikkonen as they hit the 45^th lap. He went wheel-to-wheel alongside the Ferrari into the braking zone but passed the Finn around the outside.

 

Raikkonen tried to counter attack the Briton at the Variante Della Roggia Chicane but Hamilton held the lead and rapidly pulled clear as the Finn was nursing a front-left blister.

 

The situation saw Raikkonen drop nearly nine seconds behind Hamilton, whose victory extended his Driver’s Championship lead to 30 points as Vettel received another place from Verstappen by taking fourth following the Dutchman’s penalty.

 

Bottas used his fresher rubber to his advantage and slashed through Verstappen’s three second gap and started pushing for third with ten laps remaining.

 

He got a great slipstream on Verstappen heading into the first corner and moved to the outside when the Dutchman under braked to the left at the first chicane, which bumped Bottas onto the grass and the Finn took an excursion in the runoff area.

 

Verstappen was slapped with a five-second time penalty, then defended hard from Bottas when the Finn rapidly recovered from the four second gap, reporting to the team over the radio that he did not care that he was losing time to Vettel.

 

That brought Vettel back into play, who stopped again in his recovery drive to fifth on-track, to get within five seconds of Verstappen and take another two points to his tally.

 

Haas F1 Team’s Romain Grosjean was under intense pressure from the two Racing Point Force India’s in the battle for best of the rest.

 

Grosjean resisted pressure and came home in sixth place but was later disqualified due to being found running an illegal floor (the team are due to appeal the decision). This promoted Esteban Ocon to sixth after beating his fast-charging Force India team-mate Sergio Perez who came home in seventh place.

 

Renault’s Carlos Sainz ended the race in eighth and ahead of the two Mercedes-powered Williams FW41’s of Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin who finished in ninth and tenth places respectively and scoring the Grove-based outfit’s second points finish of the year.

 

Sauber’s Charles Leclerc came home 11^th and in-front of the sole running McLaren of Stoffel Vandoorne who finished 12^th.

 

The other Renault of Nico Hulkenberg took 13^th place and finished ahead of Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly who was 14^th and Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson and Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen who were brought up the rear.

 

There were two other retirements at the Italian Grand Prix alongside Hartley, with McLaren’s Fernando Alonso ending his day early with an issue on lap 10 and Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo pulling over with a smoking RB14 racer around the halfway point of the race whilst running in the points.

 

The Situation

 

 

Lewis Hamilton returns to Singapore sitting on top of the Driver’s Championship with 256 points and a 30-point advantage over title-rival Sebastian Vettel who is second on 226 points while Kimi Raikkonen is a further 92 points behind the Briton in third on 164 points.

 

Mercedes returns to Marina Bay on top of the Constructors Championship with 415 points and 25 ahead of nearest rivals Ferrari who are second on 390 points while Red Bull Racing are a further 167 points behind the Silver Arrows in third on 248 points.

 

2018 Formula 1 World Driver’s Championship Standings

1. Lewis Hamilton – 256 Points.
2. Sebastian Vettel – 226 Points.
3. Kimi Raikkonen – 164 Points.
4. Valtteri Bottas – 159 Points.
5. Max Verstappen – 130 Points.
6. Daniel Ricciardo – 118 Points.
7. Nico Hulkenberg – 52 Points.
8. Kevin Magnussen – 49 Points.
9. Sergio Perez – 46 Points.
10. Esteban Ocon – 45 Points.

 

2018 Formula 1 World Constructors Championship Standings

1. Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport – 415 Points.
2. Scuderia Ferrari – 390 Points.
3. Aston Martin Red Bull Racing – 248 Points.
4. Renault Sport F1 Team – 86 Points.
5. Haas F1 Team – 76 Points.
6. McLaren-Renault F1 Team – 52 Points.
7. Racing Point Force India F1 Team – 32 Points.
8. Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda – 30 Points.
9. Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team – 19 Points.
10. Williams Martini Racing – 7 Points.

 

The Formula 1 2018 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix weekend begins Friday September 14 with Free Practice 1 and 2, followed by Free Practice 3 and Qualifying Saturday September 15 and the 61 lap Race Sunday September 16.