F1 Singapore Grand Prix Advantage Lewis after chaotic start
Hey, there sports fans. I hope you are enjoying my blogs well here's another one. And for this one, it's time to go back to Formula One. And this time the travelling circus goes racing under the lights of the Marina Bay circuit in Singapore. The Singapore Grand Prix has been on the calendar since 2008 and has gone from a race that would be difficult to organize and have teams challenge logistics, to one of the favourites. Not just for the sides because of the challenges but also for the fans as it provides a spectacle and also provides one of the most entertaining races of the whole F1 season.
There were many challenges at the beginning of the negotiation. The closest race to Singapore is Malaysia and has been complaining about the heat and humidity that the drivers had to cope with. The result was to make it a night race. This added a question which was how do you make the Formula One work at night when the cars that mainly race during the day adapt to night racing? The answer was to replace the streetlights and install new ones with the brightest light bulbs at 500-metre spaces and flood the track with the world's most powerful use of lights. Another reason was that the majority of F1 fans are in Europe and race it at European times how do the teams and drivers operate a European race weekend in an Asian time zone. They worked it out to wake up at 1 o'clock in the afternoon local time and stay up until the early hours of the morning. Another challenge was how to make the car work at night temperatures which actually were beneficial for the timing as in mid-September the temperatures at night are close to European temperatures which sorted out that issue. Another was would the fans buy into a night race. This was a tough era for Bernie Ecclestone when fans weren't loving new tracks as shown when the European Grand Prix in Valencia didn't get the fans interested, however after watching the qualifying and a few laps of the race fans bought it with every penny. They wanted it to stay on the calendar. The success of the race then made Bernie look at where the next night race could be staged and then when Abu Dabhi applied Bernie found his perfect candidate and even though the tracks have not been memorable it has been showing the success of night races. Then in 2014 when the Bahrain Grand Prix was struggling with an image issue after the Arab Spring and fans and teams along with drivers not enjoying the race, Bernie decided to change it to a night race which has worked as since that decision the race has provided entertainment for the fans at home.
Since the Italian Grand Prix, it has been announcements galore. McLaren-Honda's second incarnation has ended on a sour note, and McLaren has signed a deal with Renault to be the leading engine supplier outside Renault's own team. This meant that Red Bull will leave the engine manufacturer at the end of the 2018 season that won them 5 constructors championships and 4 drivers championships after their own issues since 2014. The favourites to replace Renault and their junior team Torro Rosso will be Honda. And Red Bull is hoping that Honda can improve their engines by that time and even the owner of Red Bull has hinted that he might withdraw the team in 2021 when the next set of regulations come in. However, since the teams announcing the switch to engines there have also been talks of driver changes, Carlos Sainz of Torro Rosso will replace struggling Jolyn Palmer in the main Renault team as part of the deal. There have also been rumours galore as one rumour that has got everyone excited is the possibility of Aston Martin, the famous company known for making the James Bond movie cars, becoming a Formula One team.
For the two main drivers Hamilton and Vettel it's time for both to put their foot down and for one of them to establish their foothold on the world championship. And in the Friday practice sessions, it looked like Vettel and Ferrari had the advantage over the Mercedes in terms of the pace on the streets of Singapore. This carried on into qualifying on Saturday with Vettel taking pole and his teammate Raikkonen taking fourth, with both Red Bulls splitting the Ferrari's, along with Hamilton on the third row in 5th place and Valtteri Bottas in 6th. Going into the race, the favourites to win were the Ferrari's because of the pace and the consistent driveability of the car compared to the Mercedes.
The first corner of the race created the most controversial start as when the lights went off Vettel decided to get onto the left-hand side of the track to defend the lead into turn one and crashed into Verstappen and Raikkonen who had a better start. They ended up getting caught in a three-way crash with Vettel and Verstappen. The result was Raikkonen and Verstappen having a broken suspension and Vettel damaging his sidepod and had hydraulic fluids gushing out and ended up spinning and breaking his front wing and Hamilton took the lead in which he stayed for the rest of the race. Another victim of the first corner crash was McLaren's Fernando Alonso as he got hit by Vettel and although he didn't take much, he carried on until lap 9 when the team couldn't help him with how bad the car was, and he was struggling. There were four more retirements in the race Magnusson and Hulkenberg were due to mechanical issues, the next was Torro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat when he went too fast for the corner and crashed into the tyre barrier on lap 11. The last was Marcus Ericsson when he spun and the engine stalled on lap 38. The whole story of the events led a 61 lap race to be cut to a timed chase because it was coming up to 2 hours of racing the maximum amount of time and they ended up finishing on lap 58.
The result was that Hamilton extending his lead to 28 points in the championship as the teams take a week off and get ready to race in Malaysia, so join me as I do another report on the F1. See you all very soon.
Mark KRO
There were many challenges at the beginning of the negotiation. The closest race to Singapore is Malaysia and has been complaining about the heat and humidity that the drivers had to cope with. The result was to make it a night race. This added a question which was how do you make the Formula One work at night when the cars that mainly race during the day adapt to night racing? The answer was to replace the streetlights and install new ones with the brightest light bulbs at 500-metre spaces and flood the track with the world's most powerful use of lights. Another reason was that the majority of F1 fans are in Europe and race it at European times how do the teams and drivers operate a European race weekend in an Asian time zone. They worked it out to wake up at 1 o'clock in the afternoon local time and stay up until the early hours of the morning. Another challenge was how to make the car work at night temperatures which actually were beneficial for the timing as in mid-September the temperatures at night are close to European temperatures which sorted out that issue. Another was would the fans buy into a night race. This was a tough era for Bernie Ecclestone when fans weren't loving new tracks as shown when the European Grand Prix in Valencia didn't get the fans interested, however after watching the qualifying and a few laps of the race fans bought it with every penny. They wanted it to stay on the calendar. The success of the race then made Bernie look at where the next night race could be staged and then when Abu Dabhi applied Bernie found his perfect candidate and even though the tracks have not been memorable it has been showing the success of night races. Then in 2014 when the Bahrain Grand Prix was struggling with an image issue after the Arab Spring and fans and teams along with drivers not enjoying the race, Bernie decided to change it to a night race which has worked as since that decision the race has provided entertainment for the fans at home.
Since the Italian Grand Prix, it has been announcements galore. McLaren-Honda's second incarnation has ended on a sour note, and McLaren has signed a deal with Renault to be the leading engine supplier outside Renault's own team. This meant that Red Bull will leave the engine manufacturer at the end of the 2018 season that won them 5 constructors championships and 4 drivers championships after their own issues since 2014. The favourites to replace Renault and their junior team Torro Rosso will be Honda. And Red Bull is hoping that Honda can improve their engines by that time and even the owner of Red Bull has hinted that he might withdraw the team in 2021 when the next set of regulations come in. However, since the teams announcing the switch to engines there have also been talks of driver changes, Carlos Sainz of Torro Rosso will replace struggling Jolyn Palmer in the main Renault team as part of the deal. There have also been rumours galore as one rumour that has got everyone excited is the possibility of Aston Martin, the famous company known for making the James Bond movie cars, becoming a Formula One team.
For the two main drivers Hamilton and Vettel it's time for both to put their foot down and for one of them to establish their foothold on the world championship. And in the Friday practice sessions, it looked like Vettel and Ferrari had the advantage over the Mercedes in terms of the pace on the streets of Singapore. This carried on into qualifying on Saturday with Vettel taking pole and his teammate Raikkonen taking fourth, with both Red Bulls splitting the Ferrari's, along with Hamilton on the third row in 5th place and Valtteri Bottas in 6th. Going into the race, the favourites to win were the Ferrari's because of the pace and the consistent driveability of the car compared to the Mercedes.
The first corner of the race created the most controversial start as when the lights went off Vettel decided to get onto the left-hand side of the track to defend the lead into turn one and crashed into Verstappen and Raikkonen who had a better start. They ended up getting caught in a three-way crash with Vettel and Verstappen. The result was Raikkonen and Verstappen having a broken suspension and Vettel damaging his sidepod and had hydraulic fluids gushing out and ended up spinning and breaking his front wing and Hamilton took the lead in which he stayed for the rest of the race. Another victim of the first corner crash was McLaren's Fernando Alonso as he got hit by Vettel and although he didn't take much, he carried on until lap 9 when the team couldn't help him with how bad the car was, and he was struggling. There were four more retirements in the race Magnusson and Hulkenberg were due to mechanical issues, the next was Torro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat when he went too fast for the corner and crashed into the tyre barrier on lap 11. The last was Marcus Ericsson when he spun and the engine stalled on lap 38. The whole story of the events led a 61 lap race to be cut to a timed chase because it was coming up to 2 hours of racing the maximum amount of time and they ended up finishing on lap 58.
The result was that Hamilton extending his lead to 28 points in the championship as the teams take a week off and get ready to race in Malaysia, so join me as I do another report on the F1. See you all very soon.
Mark KRO
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