@Carlossainz55 fends-off @LandoNorris, @MercedesAMGF1 to clinch victory in thrilling #SingaporeGP. #F1
Carlos Sainz, #55, Scuderia Ferrari, SF-23, celebrating after taking his second F1-career win with victory at the Formula 1 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix 2023, Marina Bay Street Circuit, Marina Bay, Singapore. Image credit to Clive Rose/Getty Images. Sainz Singapore GP Victory, Sainz Ferrari Singapore Victory, 2023 Singapore GP Results. 2023 F1 Singapore GP Results.
Sainz Singapore GP Victory – Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz amazingly fended-off McLaren’s Lando Norris and Mercedes in an intense Singapore GP to claim his second-career victory, as George Russell crashed out on the final lap.
The Spaniard lead from start-to-finish from pole position and delivered a tactical race to perfection to hold off two fast-charging Mercedes F1 W14 entries in the Grand Prix’s second half by using Norris as a bodyguard.
The Silver Arrows had forecasted a potential strategic advantage after yesterday’s qualifying, with Russell stating he saved an extra set of the C4 medium rubber should there be the opportunity to have a two-stopper.
Alpine’s Esteban Ocon presented that opportunity, and following the virtual safety car, both Mercedes took advantage of that cheaper pitstop on lap 44 for that fresh set of tyres.
This gave the Silver Arrows pairing a clear advantage, and although they surrendered their track position to drop into fourth and fifth respectively, Russell and Sir Lewis Hamilton were around two seconds a lap faster than the cars in-front.
The other Ferrari SF-23 entry of Charles Leclerc, who had dropped positions in the earlier round of pitstops under the safety car having moved up into second at the start, was initially up on the two Mercedes, who picked off the Monegasque rapidly and began to reel in Norris ahead.
Recognising his best chance of victory was to ensure Norris had DRS to defend, Sainz backed off to allow Norris to do so for the closing stages, which protected the McLaren driver from the threat of his fellow British-compatriot in the F1 W14 behind.
Russell put Norris under intense pressure on the 59th tour, but the latter did enough to hold firm and keep the Mercedes at bay, giving Sainz more time.
The race leader backed off again to keep Norris with DRS assistance for the final few laps, which proved to be enough. Russell put the result beyond doubt after suffering a crash at turn 10 due to hitting the outside wall to ensure Sainz claimed the Singapore GP victory.
When the 62-lap Singapore GP began, pole-sitter Sainz got a solid run into turn one with Leclerc jumping past Russell into second as Hamilton ran straight into the turn one run-off area and made his way ahead of his Mercedes team-mate into third place at the end of sector one.
At the end of the opening lap Sainz was 1.273 seconds clear of Ferrari team-mate Leclerc with Hamilton third, Russell fourth and McLaren’s Lando Norris rounding out the top five.
AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda stopped at the end of turn 14 due to a puncture and was the first retirement of the Grand Prix.
Hamilton swapped places with Russell due to gaining an advantage putting the latter into third place.
On the fifth tour Sainz held a 0.937 gap to team-mate Leclerc with Russell third, Norris in fourth as Hamilton gave the place back to his fellow British-compatriot.
On lap six, championship leader Max Verstappen who started 11th after a horrid qualifying session yesterday made his way up into seventh place and got passed Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen down the inside of the Dane at the end of the Bridge.
The tenth tour saw Sainz’s lead at 0.991 seconds over Ferrari team-mate Leclerc with Russell holding third, Norris fourth as Hamilton completed the top five.
On lap 11, Russell was told over the radio that Ferrari were looking to sacrifice Leclerc to try and prevent race-leader Sainz from being undercut when the first round of pit-stops arrive.
Lap 15 saw Sainz increase his lead to 2.422 seconds over Ferrari team-mate Leclerc with Russell third as Norris and Hamilton were tucked behind in fourth and fifth respectively.
On the 18th lap, Russell said to his team: “Let me know what our best shot of winning this race is, what do I need to do.” The team told him to keep the pressure on the Ferrari’s out-front. Whilst Piastri was told by his McLaren team that a brief rain shower could be on the way.
The 20th lap saw Williams’ Logan Sargeant go straight into the wall at turn 14 and damaged his front wing, and scattering debris all over the track deploying the safety car.
The majority pitted for a set of hards other than Verstappen, Perez and Bottas all remained on track due to starting on the C3 white side-walled compounds and are yet to stop.
Sainz emerged in the lead with Verstappen second, Russell third, Perez fourth, Norris fifth and Leclerc down in sixth due to a slow pit-stop.
When the safety car came in on lap 23 and the race returned to green, Sainz made a solid jump away from Verstappen out of the final two corners and into turn one.
Behind Sainz, Verstappen was under intense pressure from Russell with the latter getting passed the Red Bull a bit later on in the lap – Leclerc lost a couple of places to both Hamilton and Perez who was also had the Mercedes right on his tail.
A tour later, Hamilton made his way past Perez to grab fifth place at the end of sector one and Norris jumped ahead of Verstappen to take third.
On lap 26, Sainz was told to back the field up and had the Mercedes of Russell 0.684 seconds behind him with Norris third, the yet-to-pit Verstappen fourth as Hamilton rounded out the top five.
The 27th tour saw Hamilton dive up the inside of Verstappen at the end of sector one to take fourth place off the Red Bull.
On the 28th lap, Leclerc followed suit and made the same move as Hamilton at turn seven to get ahead of Verstappen to take sixth place.
With 32 tours remaining, Sainz’s lead was up to 1.232 seconds over Russell with Norris 0.909 seconds behind his fellow British-compatriot in third, Hamilton in fourth as Leclerc completed the top five.
On lap 33, Russell radioed his team saying he really wanted to go for the win, but was on the same strategy to race leader Sainz – Verstappen reported to his team that it felt like he was “driving on ice”
On the 35th lap Russell was still lapping quicker than Sainz, but still could not find his way by the Ferrari as Alpine’s Pierre Gasly forced his way past Haas’ Magnussen into tenth place.
Sainz reported to his team that he had one second in hand and asked when he could push to clear ahead of the Mercedes.
With 22 laps remaining, Sainz had a 0.464 second gap over Russell with Norris third, Hamilton fourth as Leclerc rounded out the top five with the yet-to-pit Verstappen in sixth place.
Perez also pitted for a fresh set of C4 yellow-marked mediums and emerged in 18th place behind Sargeant.
His Red Bull team-mate followed suit a tour later also for mediums and came out in 15th behind Magnussen.
With 19 laps remaining, race leader Sainz still had Russell right on his tail, a 0.609 seconds with Norris third, Hamilton fourth and Leclerc rounding out the top five as Alpine’s Esteban Ocon suffered a power-unit issue and parked it in-between turns one and two bringing out the virtual safety car.
On lap 45, Mercedes brought in both Russell and Hamilton for a fresh set of mediums to take advantage of the virtual safety car along with Alonso who served his five-second timed-penalty and had a slot front-right issue and emerged in 15th behind Magnussen.
Russell and Hamilton emerged in fourth and fifth respectively and were lapping at a rate of knots compared to the front-three.
With 15 laps left, Sainz held a 2.087 gap over Norris with Leclerc in third place as the two charging Mercedes of Russell and Hamilton were in fourth and fifth.
Lap 50 saw Russell 12.2 off race leader Sainz and Hamilton a further 15.5 seconds off the Spaniard as both Mercedes were closing in on third-placed Leclerc.
With ten laps remaining, Sainz held a 1.615 second lead over Norris with Leclerc third and Russell 1.255 seconds off the third-placed Ferrari as Hamilton was a further 2.026 off his team-mate in fifth.
On lap 53, Russell forced his way ahead of Leclerc into turn 14 taking third place from the Monegasque driver.
A lap later, Hamilton made his way around the outside of Leclerc to grab fourth at the end of sector one.
With five laps left, Sainz had a gap of 0.857 seconds over second-placed Norris with Russell 1.082 behind the McLaren with Hamilton fourth as Leclerc rounded out the top five.
With four laps remaining, in the battle for second, Russell was looking all over the back of Norris’s MCL60, but the latter managed to keep ahead of the F1 W14 entry.
On the final lap, Russell clipped the wall and went straight on into the wall at turn ten and retired as Ferrari’s Sainz crossed the line by 0.604 seconds to take victory at the Singapore GP over Norris as Hamilton completed the top three.
The other SF-23 entry of Leclerc finished a distant fourth and in-front of a fast-charging Red Bull of Max Verstappen, whose alternate strategy paid off having recovered through the field on a fresh set of C4 mediums. Neither Red Bull pitted during the safety car period, and their out-of-normal position at the front on the hards made them easy for their rivals.
Regardless, the championship leader managed to pull off an effective drive to finish in the top five, having overtaken Gasly for sixth and moving up a place when Russell retired.
Gasly finished three seconds clear of McLaren’s Piastri, who did not have the upgrades for his MCL60 racer for this weekend’s Grand Prix, whilst the other Red Bull RB19 entry of Perez managed to take eighth having fallen to the back after his only pitstop.
The Mexican clashed with the aforementioned Tsunoda on the opening tour, which put the AlphaTauri driver out early with a puncture and is also part of an investigation by the stewards for tangle with Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon at turn 13.
Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Liam Lawson scored his first points in Formula 1 finishing ninth as Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen rounded out the top ten.
Albon and Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu ended their race in 11th and 12th respectively with the latter starting in the pit-lane due to a power unit change, and Haas F1 Team’s Nico Hulkenberg settled for 13th.
Williams Racing’s Sargeant managed to recover to 14th with Aston Martin’s Alonso the last of the drivers to finish.
Alonso’s Aston Martin team-mate Lance Stroll was forced to miss the race due to yesterday’s heavy qualifying shunt.
2023 Singapore GP – The Top Three
2023 Singapore GP Winner – Carlos Sainz, #55, Scuderia Ferrari, SF-23:
“An incredible feeling, an incredible weekend. I want to thank everyone in Ferrari for this turnaround after a tricky start to the season, we brought home a P1 that I’m sure will make all the Italians happy today. Given our limitations with tyre wear, I knew it would be a long [final] stint on hards. It worked to perfection, we gave Lando some DRS to help him, and we got the P1. I felt under control to be honest, I had the head space to do what I wanted to do.”
2nd Place – Lando Norris, #4, McLaren Formula 1 Team, MCL60, +0.812s:
“Carlos was very generous, helping me get DRS. It helped my race, but it also helped his. We knew it would be tough when Mercedes boxed. I hit the wall on the last lap at the same place, so [Russell] just copied me, he just did it worse. No, I feel for him, he was the quickest out there today.”
3rd Place – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team, F1 W14, +1.269s:
“Firstly, congratulations to Carlos and Lando, they did a great job today and their strategy worked. We rolled the dice, with different tyres. The team did a great job to get us back up there. Extremely unfortunate for George, we were pushing so hard to catch these guys and our tyres were so hot – but he’ll bounce back, he was phenomenal.”
Formula 1 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix 2023 Race Results Classification (62 Laps)
| POS | NO | DRIVER | CAR | LAPS | TIME/RETIRED | PTS |
| 1 | 55 | Carlos Sainz | FERRARI | 62 | 1:46:37.418 | 25 |
| 2 | 4 | Lando Norris | MCLAREN MERCEDES | 62 | +0.812s | 18 |
| 3 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | MERCEDES | 62 | +1.269s | 16 |
| 4 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | FERRARI | 62 | +21.177s | 12 |
| 5 | 1 | Max Verstappen | RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT | 62 | +21.441s | 10 |
| 6 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | ALPINE RENAULT | 62 | +38.441s | 8 |
| 7 | 81 | Oscar Piastri | MCLAREN MERCEDES | 62 | +41.479s | 6 |
| 8 | 11 | Sergio Perez | RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT | 62 | +54.534s | 4 |
| 9 | 40 | Liam Lawson | ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT | 62 | +65.918s | 2 |
| 10 | 20 | Kevin Magnussen | HAAS FERRARI | 62 | +72.116s | 1 |
| 11 | 23 | Alexander Albon | WILLIAMS MERCEDES | 62 | +73.417s | 0 |
| 12 | 24 | Zhou Guanyu | ALFA ROMEO FERRARI | 62 | +83.649s | 0 |
| 13 | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | HAAS FERRARI | 62 | +86.201s | 0 |
| 14 | 2 | Logan Sargeant | WILLIAMS MERCEDES | 62 | +86.889s | 0 |
| 15 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES | 62 | +87.603s | 0 |
| 16 | 63 | George Russell | MERCEDES | 61 | DNF | 0 |
| NC | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | ALFA ROMEO FERRARI | 51 | DNF | 0 |
| NC | 31 | Esteban Ocon | ALPINE RENAULT | 42 | DNF | 0 |
| NC | 22 | Yuki Tsunoda | ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT | 0 | DNF | 0 |
* Provisional results. Note – Hamilton scored an additional point for setting the fastest lap of the race.
https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2023/races/1219/singapore/race-result.html
Round 16 of the 2023 FIA Formula One World Championship heads straight to the Suzuka International Racing Course in Suzuka, Mie-Prefecture, Japan for the Formula 1 Honda Japanese Grand Prix 2023 from Friday September 22-Sunday September 24.
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