Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash
By Anthony Heller
MARINA BAY, Singapore, September 30 – October 2
Sergio Perez secured an impressive victory at the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday, qualifying P2 and leading every lap of the race that went the full two-hour time limit at Marina Bay Street Circuit.
The race, originally scheduled for 61 laps, only ran for 60 laps due to the time limit. George Russell was knocked out in Q2 with champion-elect Max Verstappen qualifying P8 after a car issue in Q3. Charles Leclerc claimed yet another pole with Perez just behind, followed by Carlos Sainz. Seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton was in P4.
The first of five full-course yellows – two full safety cars and three virtual safety cars – came out on lap eight as Nicholas Latifi crashed into Zhou Guanyu. Zhou retired on the track, bringing out the safety car. Latifi managed to limp his scoreless Williams back to the pits before the engineers deemed his car damage to be terminal as the Canadian driver retired.
All 20 cars started the race on intermediate tires, and George Russell was the first to box for slicks. He came out nearly a full lap down on the leader, Perez, and would stay at the back of the running cars, finishing two laps down from the race-winner. Fernando Alonso was next to retire, seeing the VSC come out after his Alpine had an engine failure. Just five laps later the VSC was out again – this time for the other Williams of Alex Albon – his front wing was broken after crashing into the wall when his car understeered into a hairpin.
Just after the VSC had ended, it was straight back out when Esteban Ocon retired, dooming Alpine to a double DNF that saw them drop below McLaren in the Constructors’ Championship. He had a similar issue to his teammate and retired on the same escape road that Zhou had 20 laps prior.
One further incident occurred during lap 38. Yuki Tsunoda crashed his AlphaTauri, bringing out a full safety car. Many of the running cars had just pitted for slicks, all bar the two McLarens of Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo. They used the pit advantage to secure P4 and P5 in the race, a necessary result for their team and especially for Ricciardo. The final classification saw Perez come out on top, followed by the two Ferraris of Leclerc and Sainz. McLarens and Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin followed by Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel, Hamilton, and Pierre Gasly rounded out the points.