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For a Grand Prix that is all about racing in the dark, Singapore’s street spectacle certainly had its sparkling side, for, under 1500 floodlights, F1’s only night race turned this year’s title race on its head. Who would have thought just five races ago that Fernando Alonso – under siege from tifosi across the world after a run of lack-lustre weekends, particularly Monaco and Silverstone – would win three rounds to move to second on the log?
More importantly, the race proved a microcosm of the season to date, neatly encapsulating the individual styles of the championship’s five primary combatants. In Belgium, after a crash which dropped him to a distant fifth on the points’ log, the man upon whom Ferrari has pinned its hopes of celebrating the Scuderia’s first Mediterranean world champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953 was asked what he could salvage from the rest of the season.
‘The championship,’ this modern day matador responded flatly to looks of incredulity. Those who doubted him were treated to stony stares, and after his latest win, taken in the heat of an equatorial night, his sweating face adopted the same look: ‘I told you so...’
Having ‘won’ the inaugural 2008 race in the island state with a little bit of help from his friends (at Renault), the Ferrari driver had to do it in Singapore if he wished to remain in contention. Above all, he needed to win emphatically on those streets if he was at all to be forgiven for benefitting from ‘Crashgate’ - even if, as he consistently avers, he had no prior knowledge about the dastardly deed, and was a deserving winner...
Yes, the Spaniard took the chequer in July in Germany, but only after team-mate Felipe Massa was effectively ordered aside; yes, the 2005/6 champion won impressively in Monza in a car that was far from the fastest on the grid after annexing a stupendous pole early on Q3, then losing out at the start in Ferrari’s backyard - forcing his team to do it during his stop - but Singapore proved another challenge entirely: mentally and technically.
Not only did the basically right-angled circuit hardly play to the strengths of the Ferrari F10 – having started out a solid, conservative design, it had F-ducts and blown diffusers added ‘on the hoof’, making it the most compromised of the top three cars – but rain was forecast for Sunday, meaning set-up was, in most instances, a matter of (educated) guesswork. When you have the third-best car, that affects you more than those ahead.
Yet, ‘Ferdi’ repeated his Monza trick of sticking in a ‘banker’ early in Q3, then sweated as his opponents sho at him. One by one they proved incapable of matching him, and come the drop of the chequer at the end of Q3, pole was his. Now all he had to do is avoid losing out in the drag to Turn 1, then match fellow front-rower Sebastian Vettel until the first (and, as it turned out, only) stop to retain the lead.
That was how it washed out, and within a little over a fortnight Alonso went from title so-and-so to second on the log. That sentence makes it sound oh-so easy, which does Alonso a massive injustice: for 61 laps he drove the wheels off his red car, never far enough ahead of Vettel to relax for even a split-second. It was, Alonso agreed later, one of his best-ever drives. Not one usually given to hyperbole, he could not help reminding his opponents he was back in the title chase. And how.
So, having had his German win confirmed in the run up to the Italian race, then taken two wins on the trot, the Andalucían added a solid 75 points to his pre-Hockenheim tally. Add in 18 from second in Hungary, and he scored 93 out of a possible 125 since Silverstone in early July. No one else, including championship leader Mark Webber – who scored 74 points during the same period - comes vaguely close.
In Singapore the Australian, though, finished third behind Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who, despite being tipped for title honours after proving to be the quickest man around in the early rounds, has not won since the European Grand Prix in Valencia back in late June.
The 23-year-old German, who this year has his final shot at becoming F1’s youngest-ever world champion after being youngest-everything-else (grand prix participant, points’ scorer, pole winner, race winner), tried all he knew from second on the grid to topple Alonso, but failed by just 0,2 seconds after almost two hours.
Red Bull brought him in on the same tyre swap lap as Alonso, and with that any chance of leaping the leader evaporated. That has been the story of Vettel’s 2010: opportunities squandered. He has lost well over a 100 points so far this season, at times through his own making, others through team decisions, yet more through mechanical malady. With the points ‘swing’ he should by now be 125 digits up on Webber, even further ahead of the rest, so come F1’s shutdown in December/January he will have plenty to ponder.
A simple statistic superbly illustrates his season: SebVet has taken seven poles, but scored just two wins, only one of which (Europe) came from pole position...
Shrewd Webber
That he will in future have plenty of chances of claiming crowns is a given, but this year was to be his, and the current situation hurts – as he makes clear when things go pear-shaped for whatever reason. His temper tantrums have, though, no place in this big boys’ business. Still, Singapore kept Vettel in the hunt by elevating his score to 181 points, albeit in fourth place behind Webber (202 points), Alonso (191) and Lewis Hamilton (182).
By contrast, Webber has played a shrewd percentage game – when his stars are aligned the lanky 34-year-old is simply devastating, as his 2010 win and pole tallies of four and five respectively prove. However, when clouds abound, Mark is not averse to gambling, as he did masterfully in Hungary by staying out, effectively racing an unseen opponent as he (successfully) sought sufficient cushion for his stop; as he did in Singapore, when he pitted early in the hope of vaulting up the order from a (comparatively) low fifth grid slot.
Both times it worked: he won gloriously in Hungary after electing to stay out while all others pitted, retained the title lead going to this weekend’s round in Japan by finishing third in Singapore. Sure, he was aided in his quest by Hamilton’s impatience (of which more anon), as he had been by the stupidity of Vettel, who, while in the lead behind the Safety Car in Hungary, was penalised after losing concentration and dropping too far back.
Jenson Button has posted just two non-scores this season, neither his fault, and while his approach may not aid in retaining the title he won with Brawn after a similarly cautious season, it certainly enabled him to pounce when those ahead faltered, keeping him within a win of the championship at the three-quarter mark.
So it was in Singapore when Hamilton tangled with Webber: Jens was there waiting, taking fourth as LH chucked his R500 000 steering wheel at the scenery in disgust at his win or bust approach after parking his car against the barriers.
Hamilton's bad luck
Whoever would have thought that, in the same time frame nemesis Alonso (remember their 2007 acrimony at McLaren?) racked up 93 points, Lewis Hamilton would win just once (albeit masterfully) and crash twice, both times through his own making, to score just 37? Where McLaren’s 2008 world champion led the title hunt after Germany, he rollercoasted since, regaining it with victory in Belgium after losing out to Webber in Hungary, then returning it to the Australian after his first lap misjudgement against Vettel’s rear wheel in Monza. Crashing out after tangling with Webber in Singapore marks yet another blob on his copybook.
In the split-second it took for Lewis to lunge at the tough Queanbeyan Kid after the latter was baulked by Virgin’s about-to-be-lapped Lucas di Grassi, LH displayed precisely those characteristics which lost him the world title in 2007 but gained him same the following season: impetuous opportunism. Not since Nigel Mansell has F1 seen such an impulsiveness, particularly when half a gap opens. Sometimes it works; at others it doesn’t ... but Lewis, to the delight of fans across the world, has vowed not to change his style.
If the quintet can be relied upon to continue in the same vein in Japan this weekend while the rest are relegated to bit players in the ongoing drama known as the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship, there is one man who will have a starring role despite now being out of the title running: Felipe Massa.
Sayonara Massa
The Ferrari loyalist, who has been powered by Prancing Horse engines throughout F1 career, holds the key to Alonso aspirations, for he is now out of title contention, and thus ideally placed to play a spoiling game, particularly now the FIA has (semi) legalised team orders.
Tellingly, during the Paris Motor Show (2-17 October) Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo told reporters Felipe was expected to play ball. ‘I waited for Felipe with great perseverance in the last four races. I want a strong Massa who will shave points off the rivals,’ he said, before adding: ‘In Singapore he (Massa) had some bad luck, but he is in good condition to win. Those who race for Ferrari don't race for themselves, but for the Ferrari team colours. One who wants to race for himself will have to face his team...’
Thus in Japan Alonso holds two of the six aces while the other four contenders need to fight their own corners with one each. Can he make it three in a row? Just three races ago he was written off totally...
Can Webber retain his points’ lead? Through a combination of his shrewdness and undoubted speed he could do so; by the same token he needs to remember that 25 points – precisely one win – cover the hopefuls, so could just as easily drop to fifth as remain on top, particularly as he needs to fight Vettel in an equal car on a circuit which should play more to the strengths of the Red Bull Racing RB6 than the McLarens or Ferrari...
Will Vettel leave his youthful baggage in the pits as he heads to the grid? If not, he can wave his ‘youngest-ever’ hopes sayonara...
What about the silver bears? McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh has vowed to let Hamilton and Button race each other to the bitter end – which is how it could well turn out to despite the air of bonhomie between Britain’s two most recent world champions...
That Suzuka on Sunday will deliver a continuation of what has gone before is a given. A classic race on a classic circuit awaits the Famous Five.
More importantly, the race proved a microcosm of the season to date, neatly encapsulating the individual styles of the championship’s five primary combatants. In Belgium, after a crash which dropped him to a distant fifth on the points’ log, the man upon whom Ferrari has pinned its hopes of celebrating the Scuderia’s first Mediterranean world champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953 was asked what he could salvage from the rest of the season.
‘The championship,’ this modern day matador responded flatly to looks of incredulity. Those who doubted him were treated to stony stares, and after his latest win, taken in the heat of an equatorial night, his sweating face adopted the same look: ‘I told you so...’
Having ‘won’ the inaugural 2008 race in the island state with a little bit of help from his friends (at Renault), the Ferrari driver had to do it in Singapore if he wished to remain in contention. Above all, he needed to win emphatically on those streets if he was at all to be forgiven for benefitting from ‘Crashgate’ - even if, as he consistently avers, he had no prior knowledge about the dastardly deed, and was a deserving winner...
Yes, the Spaniard took the chequer in July in Germany, but only after team-mate Felipe Massa was effectively ordered aside; yes, the 2005/6 champion won impressively in Monza in a car that was far from the fastest on the grid after annexing a stupendous pole early on Q3, then losing out at the start in Ferrari’s backyard - forcing his team to do it during his stop - but Singapore proved another challenge entirely: mentally and technically.
Not only did the basically right-angled circuit hardly play to the strengths of the Ferrari F10 – having started out a solid, conservative design, it had F-ducts and blown diffusers added ‘on the hoof’, making it the most compromised of the top three cars – but rain was forecast for Sunday, meaning set-up was, in most instances, a matter of (educated) guesswork. When you have the third-best car, that affects you more than those ahead.
Yet, ‘Ferdi’ repeated his Monza trick of sticking in a ‘banker’ early in Q3, then sweated as his opponents sho at him. One by one they proved incapable of matching him, and come the drop of the chequer at the end of Q3, pole was his. Now all he had to do is avoid losing out in the drag to Turn 1, then match fellow front-rower Sebastian Vettel until the first (and, as it turned out, only) stop to retain the lead.
That was how it washed out, and within a little over a fortnight Alonso went from title so-and-so to second on the log. That sentence makes it sound oh-so easy, which does Alonso a massive injustice: for 61 laps he drove the wheels off his red car, never far enough ahead of Vettel to relax for even a split-second. It was, Alonso agreed later, one of his best-ever drives. Not one usually given to hyperbole, he could not help reminding his opponents he was back in the title chase. And how.
So, having had his German win confirmed in the run up to the Italian race, then taken two wins on the trot, the Andalucían added a solid 75 points to his pre-Hockenheim tally. Add in 18 from second in Hungary, and he scored 93 out of a possible 125 since Silverstone in early July. No one else, including championship leader Mark Webber – who scored 74 points during the same period - comes vaguely close.
In Singapore the Australian, though, finished third behind Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who, despite being tipped for title honours after proving to be the quickest man around in the early rounds, has not won since the European Grand Prix in Valencia back in late June.
The 23-year-old German, who this year has his final shot at becoming F1’s youngest-ever world champion after being youngest-everything-else (grand prix participant, points’ scorer, pole winner, race winner), tried all he knew from second on the grid to topple Alonso, but failed by just 0,2 seconds after almost two hours.
Red Bull brought him in on the same tyre swap lap as Alonso, and with that any chance of leaping the leader evaporated. That has been the story of Vettel’s 2010: opportunities squandered. He has lost well over a 100 points so far this season, at times through his own making, others through team decisions, yet more through mechanical malady. With the points ‘swing’ he should by now be 125 digits up on Webber, even further ahead of the rest, so come F1’s shutdown in December/January he will have plenty to ponder.
A simple statistic superbly illustrates his season: SebVet has taken seven poles, but scored just two wins, only one of which (Europe) came from pole position...
Shrewd Webber
That he will in future have plenty of chances of claiming crowns is a given, but this year was to be his, and the current situation hurts – as he makes clear when things go pear-shaped for whatever reason. His temper tantrums have, though, no place in this big boys’ business. Still, Singapore kept Vettel in the hunt by elevating his score to 181 points, albeit in fourth place behind Webber (202 points), Alonso (191) and Lewis Hamilton (182).
By contrast, Webber has played a shrewd percentage game – when his stars are aligned the lanky 34-year-old is simply devastating, as his 2010 win and pole tallies of four and five respectively prove. However, when clouds abound, Mark is not averse to gambling, as he did masterfully in Hungary by staying out, effectively racing an unseen opponent as he (successfully) sought sufficient cushion for his stop; as he did in Singapore, when he pitted early in the hope of vaulting up the order from a (comparatively) low fifth grid slot.
Both times it worked: he won gloriously in Hungary after electing to stay out while all others pitted, retained the title lead going to this weekend’s round in Japan by finishing third in Singapore. Sure, he was aided in his quest by Hamilton’s impatience (of which more anon), as he had been by the stupidity of Vettel, who, while in the lead behind the Safety Car in Hungary, was penalised after losing concentration and dropping too far back.
Jenson Button has posted just two non-scores this season, neither his fault, and while his approach may not aid in retaining the title he won with Brawn after a similarly cautious season, it certainly enabled him to pounce when those ahead faltered, keeping him within a win of the championship at the three-quarter mark.
So it was in Singapore when Hamilton tangled with Webber: Jens was there waiting, taking fourth as LH chucked his R500 000 steering wheel at the scenery in disgust at his win or bust approach after parking his car against the barriers.
Hamilton's bad luck
Whoever would have thought that, in the same time frame nemesis Alonso (remember their 2007 acrimony at McLaren?) racked up 93 points, Lewis Hamilton would win just once (albeit masterfully) and crash twice, both times through his own making, to score just 37? Where McLaren’s 2008 world champion led the title hunt after Germany, he rollercoasted since, regaining it with victory in Belgium after losing out to Webber in Hungary, then returning it to the Australian after his first lap misjudgement against Vettel’s rear wheel in Monza. Crashing out after tangling with Webber in Singapore marks yet another blob on his copybook.
In the split-second it took for Lewis to lunge at the tough Queanbeyan Kid after the latter was baulked by Virgin’s about-to-be-lapped Lucas di Grassi, LH displayed precisely those characteristics which lost him the world title in 2007 but gained him same the following season: impetuous opportunism. Not since Nigel Mansell has F1 seen such an impulsiveness, particularly when half a gap opens. Sometimes it works; at others it doesn’t ... but Lewis, to the delight of fans across the world, has vowed not to change his style.
If the quintet can be relied upon to continue in the same vein in Japan this weekend while the rest are relegated to bit players in the ongoing drama known as the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship, there is one man who will have a starring role despite now being out of the title running: Felipe Massa.
Sayonara Massa
The Ferrari loyalist, who has been powered by Prancing Horse engines throughout F1 career, holds the key to Alonso aspirations, for he is now out of title contention, and thus ideally placed to play a spoiling game, particularly now the FIA has (semi) legalised team orders.
Tellingly, during the Paris Motor Show (2-17 October) Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo told reporters Felipe was expected to play ball. ‘I waited for Felipe with great perseverance in the last four races. I want a strong Massa who will shave points off the rivals,’ he said, before adding: ‘In Singapore he (Massa) had some bad luck, but he is in good condition to win. Those who race for Ferrari don't race for themselves, but for the Ferrari team colours. One who wants to race for himself will have to face his team...’
Thus in Japan Alonso holds two of the six aces while the other four contenders need to fight their own corners with one each. Can he make it three in a row? Just three races ago he was written off totally...
Can Webber retain his points’ lead? Through a combination of his shrewdness and undoubted speed he could do so; by the same token he needs to remember that 25 points – precisely one win – cover the hopefuls, so could just as easily drop to fifth as remain on top, particularly as he needs to fight Vettel in an equal car on a circuit which should play more to the strengths of the Red Bull Racing RB6 than the McLarens or Ferrari...
Will Vettel leave his youthful baggage in the pits as he heads to the grid? If not, he can wave his ‘youngest-ever’ hopes sayonara...
What about the silver bears? McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh has vowed to let Hamilton and Button race each other to the bitter end – which is how it could well turn out to despite the air of bonhomie between Britain’s two most recent world champions...
That Suzuka on Sunday will deliver a continuation of what has gone before is a given. A classic race on a classic circuit awaits the Famous Five.