So the voyage begins at the conclusion of the tradition European season last race off to the flyaway races of Asia and the Americas - with the exception of a brief return to Europe for the Russian GP. Some of you might have noticed that there was no real concluding post following the Italian GP... well life kind of got in the way of that, something to do with flying off to Vienna for a week which sort of compromised the conventional post writing process. Although the Italian GP wasn't exactly an enthralling occasion - no race for the win as Rosberg was running an older spec engine. Ferrari couldn't maintain the pace they showed earlier in the weekend and Hamilton's final few laps were converted into a suspense novel as the engineers issued instructions and ordered Lewis "not to ask questions"... While that was all very suspicious, it turned out it was down to a discrepancy in the tyre pressures on the Mercedes vs the Pirelli mandated minimum settings. Despite initially being found in breach of the regulations, no real action was taken and the results stood.
In the weeks following the race the biggest news has to be the continued saga of Red Bull vs Renault. A recent comment by Renault has suggested that the 2016 engine contract with the teams - both Red Bull and Toro Rosso - is now under renegotiation. One of the news bites quotes Renault as saying they will want their own team or play no real further part in the sport. Rumours suggest that they will buy Lotus, to become a factory team. The Endstone team has run under the Renault name in 2011 - with Squadron Leader Heidfeld and Wing-commander Vitaly Petrov, know round here as the Renault Squadron. Such a purchase has been rumoured to place Maldonado's future a little in doubt. Grosjean is already in Renault's good books with his sponsorship coming from Total, who are friends with Renault. But Pastor's PDVSA association might not mix with Total and thus he might not be back. However Lotus in their current state do need quite a bit of cash to keep running so I imagine Renault would like to take on Pastor's sponsorship income to help fill some of the financial voids within the team.
Another reasonably recent development regards the lower echelon of the grid - and this time we don't mean the unfortunate situation that continues to rumble on at McLaren. We are looking further back, but not too much further to Manor, who have a new driver for the weekend. Alexander Rossi will be driving Mehri's car for the remainder of the season - with the exceptions of Russia and Abu-Dhabi where he will be on GP2 duty. This came as a slight shock to Roberto who only found out that he wouldn't get to play in Singapore until he'd landed in the country. The current theory is that Manor are giving Rossi the minimum number of races to earn a super-licence so that he can take a seat with HAAS - an American team joining the grid next season. It will be interesting to see how well he compares in relation to Will Stevens who has driven the car all season.
Marina Bay
The venue playing host to this most recent round of the championship is the Singapore street circuit. One the circuits that polarises opinions throughout the driver and fan communities. Some see it as a glossy gimmick, a night race for the sake of European race audiences and to overly glamourise an unimpressive street circuit with too many unnecessary corners. To some degree I can see that side of the fence, the circuit itself isn't the greatest layout in the world, but in reality very few street circuits are. They are confined to the topology of the road network and have little room for expansion or modification as the years go by. But I can see the unique appeal of the Singapore GP as a race and as a spectacle. Yes under the artificial lights it looks magnificent - but so does Abu Dhabi and the physical layout there is a bit pants. Night racing always looks more spectacular because the colours seem more vibrant and the sparks are emphasised - but it is down to the circuit and the drivers to make the racing entertaining. Singapore hasn't necessarily delivered on these finer points, but there is no denying that it is a supreme test for car and driver. The longest race of the season in hot, humid conditions on a bumpy circuit bounded by concrete barriers is an immense challenge. It is no surprise to note that every edition of the Singaporean GP has involved the safety car at least once such is the potential for making an error.
This season the track has undergone some minor and probably quite irrelevant modifications since last year. For the most part the track has remained exactly the same since it's creation in 2008, generally because it is quite difficult to make wholesale changes to a street circuit. But adjustments have been made to the section around the Andersen Bridge, where the cars will now drive along the opposite carriageway to change the line into the hairpin. Swapping lanes also removes the need for the small chicane immediately before the bridge - straightening the road ever so slightly. Will this make any real difference in terms of overtaking as the designers hope... well I severely doubt it somehow. But at least they are trying something. This change is an addition to the removal of the odd triple apex chicane before this bridge, which was replaced with a dull and generic left hander.
But all of the modifications only influence a small part of the track the rest of it remains the same - I would do a corner by corner inspection of the layout but given there are quite a lot of corners and most of them don't really stand up to much on their own I'd be at it for days. These posts are getting late enough as it is without hugely long winded explanations of why turn five is quite similar to turn nine and why in the great scheme of things that doesn't really matter to anyone. However despite being a wash with stereotypical street track 90 degree corners, the Marina bay circuit does have some interesting features. For example in the latter stages of the lap, the track burrows underneath the grandstands and emerges out the other side. The trouble is that in order to add this feature, a whole bunch of other corners had to be added just so that the cars would be in the right place to dive under the stands, and the corner itself is a dull and rather narrow generic 90 degree corner. Elsewhere the final corner is a nice high speed conclusion to the lap - because it is not part of the city road network it can be designed with a little more intent. Intent which is well used in this case.
Overall some circuits are recognised by their iconic corners and tradition - Singapore will likely never be able to compete on that sort of level because the only really unique corner was ripped up and replaced some time ago. But this is one of those circuits where the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts, as a complete entity it is a magnificent challenge especially over the course of a race distance. It's a race that is filled with tension as everyone waits patiently for the safety car to strike. It is difficult to quite put into words why I fall firmly into the 'pro' camp when it comes to the Singapore GP even though we haven't been treated to a Hungary 2015 esque race of epic proportions around the streets. But I think it has a lot to do with how unique it is and how severely it differs from F1's current only other street circuit in Monaco. There is something grand and mesmerizing about it, maybe it's just the spectacle of the night race and the potential for madness at any corner that keeps the anticipation high throughout the weekend.
The Form Guide
As FP1 is just about to get underway, due to the slight time difference for accommodating the night event in Singapore I have no existing data to base my guesses on this week. But I can assume that because engine performance won't be quite so important as it was in Monza and before that in Spa, we will see a much greater mix of competitors inside the top ten. Of course we can expect Mercedes to be at the very top of the tree with Ferrari as their closest rivals. While the likes of Williams, Force India and Lotus may not enjoy the same degree of freedom to frolic around inside the points places as they have done in the past two events. Because it may get a little more crowded as we approach the final part of qualifying tomorrow.
The main culprits for this will be Red Bull and Toro Rosso, who do have strong race cars from an aerodynamic and chassis design point of view - it is just the case that they are being slightly held back by the power supply. A fact which has stressed the bonds between the Red Bull group and Renault this season, especially after the two high power races we've just seen and the rise in engine penalties the team have faced due to unreliability. The Singaporean GP has a much lighter workload per lap than Monza or Spa - but the bumps associated with a street circuit, intense tropical humidity and the sheer duration of the race may place quite a lot of stress on the engines. Both Renault powered teams should be a lot more competitive this weekend but the question remains as to whether they will be able to use any of that pace.
At the back of the grid we will likely find that Sauber may lose touch with the rest of the mid-field this weekend as they could use the Ferrari power unit to make ground in previous races, but it will have less of an impact this time. But I suspect that despite dropping off the back of their competitors up the road, they will probably be safe from losing any places to McLaren. As we have completed a significant proportion of the season thus far - 12 races - we are starting to worry if McLaren are ever going to fix the issues they are having integrating the Honda power unit into their car. It seems to be a catalogue of mechanical and electrical failures ravaging a car which has no straight line speed, no ERS power and isn't too handy round the corners. Perhaps we will have to wait until 2016 before McLaren can join Ferrari and Williams in staring at the back of the Mercedes cars. Also at the back of the grid we have Manor, who will be running Alex Rossi instead of Merhi this weekend - I doubt the driver change will get them off the back row (on pace that is, not after the inevitable menagerie of penalties which will probably be handed out).
From the air the Singaporean GP may seem like a superficial exercise in indulgence when you see the thousands of lights and deocdant cityscape surrounding the circuit.In some respects that's precisely what this race is about, but inadvertently underneath all the bright lights and artificial glamour, one of the most difficult races has been created. For that reason I welcome the Singapore GP and celebrate the potential it has to be an incredible weekend.
The Bonus Points Championship Points Winners
What's this, Bonus Points, on a preview post - what on earth is the world coming to. Well as I outlined at the beginning of the post... all the way up there somewhere, performances and trips to Austria intervened with the conventional process of writing up the weekend. Therefore there were no bonus points awarded for the Italian GP - and the championship wouldn't be fair without counting all the rounds. Yes I am aware that I haven't done any counting thus far either... it hasn't been a particularly productive season here at Blog HQ. But I have made the spreadsheet that will write the HTML for the points table. All I have to do is fill in the results at some point in time. Anyway without further delay, a fortnight is enough, here are the awards for the Italian GP.
- 25pts - Daniel Ricciardo - In a car which seems to have all the power of a sloth Ricciardo managed to score points from the back of the grid.
- 18pts - Lewis Hamilton - I suppose many points have to be awarded when you effortlessly dominate the race, would have been more if he had any form of competition.
- 15pts - Felipe Massa - On the podium for Williams and had to defend as if his life depended on it to keep Bottas at bay for the final few laps.
- 12pts - Kimi Raikkonen - Made a complete mess of the start, but his recovery drive carving through the field made the race more watchable.
- 10pts - Marcus Ericsson - Another race in the points for the Sauber driver in a car which is sorely lacking development.
- 8pts - Valtteri Bottas - Scores some points for his role in the fight with Massa, not that the TV director wanted to look at any of it...
- 6pts - Daniil Kyvat - May have lucked into a point at Rosberg's demise but put another Red Bull in position to score at an unfavoured venue.
- 4pts - Mad Max Verstappen - While the toddler was well outside the points due to various penalties, he does score bonus points for his overtaking from a long way back in turn one.
- 2pts - Lotus - Both cars out at the first corner in unrelated incidents deserves a pair of consolation points.
- 1pt - Roberto Merhi - Considering he is being shelved for a while by Manor, here have a point
- -1pt - Mercedes - Those radio messages to Hamilton at the end were probably a little to cryptic
- -1pt - Pirelli - I'm not going to criticise Pirelli for making the tyres the way they have like many people have done, because they are only following orders. But they do get a penalty point for their handling of the mysterious tyre pressure case for Mercedes at Monza. Branding the whole investigation as a misunderstanding. For a sport based on advanced technology and regulations how can a tyre pressure measurement be so wrong... Only time will tell when more information surfaces.
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