Luke’s Weekend Take – Singapore GP 2024

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Singapore GP 2024: Norris on Pole, Verstappen in Hot Pursuit—Who Will Prevail?

Singapore 2024 1

We’re back for some more action in the F1 2024 season as we head to Singapore for Round 18 of this thrilling season where we see some championship battles arising to make the closing stages of this season getting more and more exciting.

Looking at the track we see some of the track being resurfaced and we see an addition to another DRS zone between Turns 14 and 16 which makes it the 4th DRS zone in this race to increase the chances of overtaking in this street race.

On the cars we see some special liveries being brought to this track and we start by mentioning the most out there livery for this weekend as we see VCARB bring a double denim livery which is a tribute to one of their clothing brands. At Mercedes, we see them having a special livery for their 50th anniversary as they add some green to the livery which makes it very similar to Aston Martin. The last team we see with a special livery is the team leading the Constructors Championship for the first time in 10 years, McLaren. They bring a special livery with some white on it as a nod to the MP4 cars of the 80s and 90s.

Some other news going around the paddock was back at VCARB where there is massive rumours that Singapore might be the last race for the Honey Badger, Daniel Ricciardo as Liam Lawson is said to be set to replace Ricciardo. This will be sad to see Ricciardo go but in recent races, he has not been putting in the performance everyone expects from him. The other news was around the rear wing for McLaren that they had in Baku as it was dubbed the wing with the Mini DRS as we seen shots of the wing flexing on a straight giving them a bit of daylight in the middle of the wing which will mimic the DRS effect. FIA stated that the wing was legal and that it passed all stress tests and McLaren state the same thing however McLaren said they have proactively made some amendments to the rear wing to address this issue.

We start now looking at the action in FP1 as we hear Zhou Guanyu saying that he needs to change his helmet as he took the dark visors in error which is meant for the evening session when the lights on track are on. Pierre Gasly had a bit of a mishap coming out of the pits as he didn’t calculate how tight the pit exit is from the garage and wasn’t going to make it round to exit and had to be pulled back by the mechanics to be able to get out without getting any damage. Oscar Piastri at McLaren had some issues with the car as there were some issues with the hub and wasn’t able to get out straight away in FP1. McLaren manages to fix this issue and get Piastri out on track.

Kevin Magnussen was reporting to the team that the brakes are terrible in the first 10 minutes of the session which is not where you want to start on a race weekend especially in a street circuit where the barriers are really close to where you are. Sergio Perez at Red Bull has to take to the runoff in Sector 2 as he locks up and does a quick pirouette to get back on track but does cause a yellow flag momentarily. At Ferrari we see Charles Leclerc reporting that he had a terrible lap on his first runs on the softs as we see him go wide on the last corner on his push lap and goes over the kerb sideways, on his 2nd push lap however we see him go 2nd fastest which was much better and after another lap he was able to make it to the top of the chart.

Valtteri Bottas had a few incidents in FP1 where he felt like he was blocked on track ruining his push laps and he indeed was but with it being FP1, I don’t believe that the stewards will get too involved. In FP1 the 2 time world champion Fernando Alonso has a couple of moments where he lost the rear a bit and both times manages to hold the car on track as he corrects the spin but on one of the occasions Alonso must have hit a few buttons on his steering as his engineer asks him if he hit the pit button in error to which Alonso replies that he pushed all his buttons on his steering to not crash the car.

Lewis Hamilton reports with 9 minutes to go in the session that he is having too much understeer, later he also reports that he is doing his best he can do and be as soft as he can on the throttle, but he is having traction issues with a lot of wheelspin. Into the closing stages now and drivers are pushing to get as much data as they can and we see Piastri having a bit of a heavy brush with the wall and had to go back into the pits for a quick inspection to ensure he didn’t get too much damage and after a quick inspection, the team were confident enough to send him back out. At the end of the session we see Charles Leclerc top the leaderboard followed by Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz.

In FP2 we had a bit of nonstop action as it is probably the most important practice session for the teams as this session is held at the same time as qualifying and the race. We start looking at Max Verstappen who is reporting that his radio button is getting stuck which means that he needs to be careful what he says there. His teammate Sergio Perez was shown the black and white flag as he goes over the white line at the pit exit but upon reviewing a replay we see that he found a car stationary when he came round a blind corner and had to take evasive action which will be quite harsh if the stewards were to penalize him for that.

10 minutes in FP2 and Hamilton is still having issues with traction as Bono tells him that they are struggling for traction in Turns 7,8,9 and 13 to which Hamilton says he has no rear end. Franco Colapinto had a funny moment in the pits as we see him pull into the Alpine pit stop as he mistaken them to the Williams mechanics one pit stop ahead. Perez seems to have some issues as his engineer asks him how the last lap was, and Perez responds that it was all over the place which shows how much Red Bull are currently struggling. George Russell at Mercedes gets a message to limp home on his car but on the way in it seems the issue was fixed as we see him start a push lap at the end of the lap he was on.

Mid way through FP2 we see the qualifying sims starting as the fastest laps were being juggled between drivers but it was Lando Norris on top at this stage as Leclerc was very close behind as it seems that Leclerc might have touched the wall on his last push lap as he asks the team to check the data. Pierre Gasly got blocked on his lap and asks if it was Perez to which the team answers that it was and Gasly reports that he will remember him. Leclerc wasn’t the only one hitting the wall as all drivers start to find the limits of the track as Norris reports that he hit the wall pretty hard, Piastri also hit the wall at 17 with some force but luckily he had no damage on the car, Russell also ended up in the wall with 2 minutes to go as in Turn 8 we see him go straight into the wall, Russell manages to reverse and get going again but he left the front wing behind him, the session was under yellow flags due to the wing and it ends up with Lando Norris on top of the leaderboard followed by Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz as we had the same 3 people in the Top 3 with Norris and Leclerc swapping places. Max Verstappen in FP2 was in 15th place and Red Bull had some work to do ahead of the Saturday sessions.

Round 18 Singapore GP: Special Liveries, Late Drama & A New DRS Zone Set the Stage for a Thrilling Battle

Onto Saturday  sessions now we had into FP3 and we see Aston Martin being out first on track 3 minutes after the session started and a few moments later we see why as we have our first lizard sighting of the weekend and 9 minutes into the session we see that the lizard is still on track to which Alonso had a radio message saying that the team got a message that track is clear but to keep an eye out for the lizard to which Alonso said it is still out in the middle of the track and he comes into the pits and the red flag comes out so that the lizard is cleared off. During the red flag we do cut to a shot of 2 Marshalls chasing the lizard and we see it running at some pace and this shot brought a smile to a few people’s faces.

Red flag clears with 48 minutes left on the clock and this time all teams went out to start their programs for the final practice session ahead of qualifying. Esteban Ocon reports that the car at the moment is suffering from instability while Piastri reports that the balance on the car already feels much better than Friday. Reporting something similar was Max Verstappen as he said that the car feels a lot better, and it was showing as he was topping the leaderboard 20 minutes in with his teammate behind him. It wasn’t all fairytales and dreams for Verstappen as later in the session he came on reporting that every time he steers fully, he keeps losing the rear.

Pierre Gasly had a moment coming into the chicane of Turns 11 and 12 as he sees Georgie Russell off the track on Turn 12, but this was enough to put Gasly off and he nearly goes into the wall. Talking of Russell, he comes on the radio saying he needs a new pair of gloves for the next sting indicating that his current pair got too sweaty, and his hands were slipping a bit inside the gloves.

Mid way through FP3 we see Alex Albon limping back to the pits as it seems that he has hit his front tyre on the wall and getting a puncture in the process, luckily for him this was only a puncture, and no other damage was on the car. Russell later in the session had to take to a runoff a couple of times as he wasn’t braking in time but always managed to find a runoff to avoid any crashes. Franco Colapinto who has been driving quite remarkably has a massive moment with 15 minutes left as he has a big snap but manages to control the car and keep going which is quite impressive by the Argentinian. At the end of FP3 we see Lando Norris once again on top followed by George Russell and Oscar Piastri as we see Ferrari drop some pace from the Friday as the pair finished in 5th and 6th about a second off the pace. Sergio Perez at the end of FP3 was noted to the stewards for impeding Lando Norris but no action was taken here while Ferrari where fined €5K after FP3 for having a mechanic charge to the pitstop and adjust the tyre pressures on Leclerc’s car which is not according to procedures.

Heading now into qualifying where in the 1st runs we see Norris go fastest with Verstappen in 2nd and Leclerc in 3rd which was some relief for Ferrari as they were looking much better than they were in FP3, Sainz his teammate got noted by the stewards as he failed to follow the race director instructions and go to the right of the bollard as he goes wide in Turn 1. Lewis Hamilton was still reporting that the rear was sliding a lot, and Russell was having similar issues as he complains that he has no grip and not sure what happened to the tyres as they feel completely different to FP3. We see Verstappen has a massive moment on the last corner and does a great job in correcting the slide and keeping the car out of the barriers while we also see Leclerc have a similar moment which shows how quick the reflexes are of these drivers. At the end of Q1 we end up losing Daniel Ricciardo, Lance Stroll, Pierre Gasly, Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu.

In Q2 we see Verstappen have another moment on the last corner as he goes over the kerb after he had a big snap, he was able to still go fastest at the time ahead of his teammate, but his time was deleted as he went over the white line. After all the teams did their runs, Mercedes came out of sync with all of them as we see them come out when everyone was back in the pits, Hamilton manages to go fastest while Russell manages 3rd at the time but Russell was still not happy with the grip as he reports that it has gone since FP3, Verstappen after having his 1st time deleted also comes out quite early on fresh softs as he had one chance to get into Q3 and he couldn’t afford to have any one disturb his run with a yellow flag or anything so this lap had to be great for him and he does manage to go fastest after a great lap which should see him go into Q3 with 3 minutes left on the session and everyone else coming out for their 2nd and final runs.

At the end we end up losing Alex Albon, Franco Colapinto, Sergio Perez, Kevin Magnussen and Esteban Ocon. The big shock here was Perez as we will see him start the race tomorrow in 13th which is where he started the race last year which seems to be history repeating itself here.

Into Q3 and the final shootout for the top 10 and on the first runs we see Carlos Sainz lose the rear of his car as soon as he was starting his 1st push lap and went rear first into the barriers and the red flag comes out, Sainz reports that this could have been due to cold tyres as he had to slow down for Piastri to get past. Verstappen had his time deleted as there was yellow flags but, on the replay, review it seems that he did lift but the stewards had other views of this, don’t think he will get any penalties for this, but he still lost his time. Carlos Sainz was noted by the stewards for crossing the track on foot which might get him a €25K fine like we seen in the past but he might get away with it as the track was empty so he might just get a slap on the wrist.

The red flag cleared but there was no rush for the teams to come out as it seemed like we were going to get a one lap shootout in the end which makes it a bit interesting for Q3. On the out laps we see drivers trying to hold their position as we hear Verstappen’s engineer ask him to pass some cars, Mercedes asked Russell to not let Verstappen through, but Verstappen still made it past Russell to start his push lap ahead of him. In the end we see Lando Norris take pole followed by Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, Oscar Piastri, Nico Hulkenberg, Fernando Alonso, Yuki Tsunoda, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz will form the top 10 tomorrow. Leclerc originally qualified in 7th behind Hulkenberg in the Haas who put in an impressive lap, but Leclerc went wide in Turn 2 and had his lap deleted.

Who do you think will come out on top tomorrow in the race?  Will Lando Norris be able to still be in the lead by the end of lap 1 or will Max Verstappen be able to take the battle to Norris and take the lead off him? Tune in tomorrow to find out.

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