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George Lombard Jr. 1st HR 🤩

F101: Beginners guide to F1 ~ Singapore review

Negative CamberSep 26, 2010

It may have started off a bit slow, and the first half may have been a bit boring, but with two safety cars, a fire, and a collision between two of the title contenders, the Singapore Grand Prix 2010 has been a race of allsorts, not to mention it’s turned the championship on its head for one or two of its contenders… This is the F101 Singapore Technical Review…

The race got off to a bit of, well quite frankly, a boring start – the top five contenders kept their positions off the grid, while contact in the midfield saw Vitantonio Liuzzi stop out on track, and after a lap when it became clear the marshals weren’t going to be able to move it under yellow flags, the safety car was deployed.

Mark Webber was the only driver of the front runners who pitted under the first safety car, and while it looked like a silly move for the championship leader, it turned out to be not such a bad idea when the two McLaren drivers started losing two to three seconds per lap to the front runners, and when they pitted, a 20 second advantage over Webber wasn’t enough, and the Red Bull gained third position.

It was the second safety car that bunched the pack back up following Kamui Kobayashi’s crash at turn 18, where he collected Bruno Senna. At the restart, the out-of-sync Virgin drivers meant both Webber and the McLarens had to add them into their restart plans, and with Webber on older tyres than Lewis Hamilton, the McLaren driver fancied his chances to pass his championship rival. When it came down to it, a good bit of slipstreaming meant Hamilton was easily past the Red Bull driver, but as he dived to the left around turn seven, the two bumped wheels, and Hamilton suffered irreparable damage and was forced to retire for the second race in succession.

As the rest of the 1 hour, 58 minute race unfolded, Fernando Alonso continued to lead, and while Sebastian Vettel looked like he might be able to pass the Ferrari, keeping the gap down to no more than three seconds for the whole race, he was unable to pass. But on the penultimate lap, as Heikki Kovalainen and Lucas di Grassi came together, and the former’s engine caught fire, seeing him drive straight past the pits and stop on the start/finish straight, the front runners started their final lap with less than a second between them. As Kovalainen swapped his racing job for a marshal’s job to put out his fire, the Ferrari and the Red Bull fought over first, and while Vettel got close, he couldn’t get close enough, and the pair crossed the line with just 0.2 seconds between them.

While the majority of the race was pretty, er, dull, there was plenty of racing, and plenty of contact. It wasn’t just Webber and Hamilton racing into turn seven, and colliding, Michael Schumacher and Nick Heidfeld had their own spat at the same corner. The most successful pass into turn seven was actually Robert Kubica, who showed everybody how to do it when he passed Adrian Sutil for seventh on lap 56.

Schumacher was in a few other squabbles throughout the race, but his collision with Heidfeld, which saw the end to the latter’s race, saw no further action from the stewards, the same as Webber and Hamilton’s collision, which was also, quite rightly, put down to a racing incident.

Webber’s third place finish sees him extend his lead in the championship to 202 points, 11 ahead of Alonso, who gains second from Hamilton with his fourth win of the season. Hamilton slips to third, now 20 points adrift of Webber, with Vettel a point behind on 181, and Button 25 points – one win, adrift from Webber on 177.

So while there is still a win between the top five drivers, with all of them still in the hunt for the title, could the McLarens or Vettel win this year’s battle? It could be tough, particularly for Hamilton, who with two DNFs back-to-back, could struggle to make up the ground, especially as Webber has been the most consistent of the five drivers.

Following the race, Adrian Sutil and Nico Hulkenberg, who finished eighth and ninth respectively, both received 20 second penalties for gaining an advantage on the first lap – and it was a confusing decision for many fans who were asking why the penalties weren’t issued during the two hour race. Their penalties elevate Felipe Massa, who started last after a gearbox failure meant he was unable to post a qualifying time yesterday, to eighth, with Sutil down to ninth, and Hulkenberg tenth.

Just four races (or three, Korea permitting), remain. But after the results of today’s race, could the real contenders for the title have changed? I just can’t wait for Abu Dhabi to find out who will be crowned champion…

George Lombard Jr. 1st HR 🤩