2022 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix highlights

Introduction

 

Sergio Perez held off Charles Leclerc for his first-ever win on the streets of Singapore. At the same time, Carlos Sainz completed the podium, and Max Verstappen finished seventh in an action-packed 2022 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix. The race winner is, however, under investigation for a Safety Car infringement…

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Mario Isola, Motorsport Director, Pirelli:

The Cinturato Green intermediates showed their reliability today. Even with relatively high wear, they delivered excellent performance over several laps, just as we expected, thanks to the data collected in qualifying. As we saw yesterday, the track took some time to dry out because of the water that remained on the surface. As conditions became drier, the race took on a new lease of life, with drivers moving onto the slicks.

Most teams chose the P Zero Yellow medium, which guaranteed an optimal balance between performance, warm-up, and durability. Drivers had to pay particular attention not to going off the line to avoid water cooling down the compound, which could affect operating temperatures. To come back to Singapore in front of so many fans truly showcased Formula 1 at its spectacular best this weekend.

How the race was won:

Red Bull driver Sergio Perez underlined his status as the man to beat on street circuits following his Monaco victory earlier this year. He won the Singapore Grand Prix ahead of Ferrari teammates Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. The top three crossed the finish line on P Zero Yellow medium tyres.

The start of the race was delayed for an hour following a rainstorm that fell shortly before the cars were due to go to the grid. Once the rain had stopped, racing got underway on a wet track with all the cars on the Cinturato Green intermediate. More than half the race elapsed before the track was suitable for slicks.

Once more, the Safety Car played a prominent role in Singapore. The first Safety Car period came on lap seven, with nobody electing to stop for fresh tyres. There was then a Virtual Safety Car on lap 21 when Mercedes driver George Russell was the first to go onto P Zero Yellow medium slicks. The other teams eventually followed the same strategy, except McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo and Alfa Romero driver Valtteri Bottas chose the P Zero Red soft. The excitement in the closing stages came from Leclerc and Perez trading fastest laps, with the Mexican’s final effort being a 1m48.165s on the mediums.

The alternative strategy:

The McLaren duo of Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo got the best use out of the Cinturato Green intermediate, completing the longest stint of 36 laps. The team split the strategies, with both drivers stopping only once but Norris going onto medium and Ricciardo onto soft. The result was fourth and fifth, with solid points for the British squad.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who started from eighth on the grid, managed to finish in the points after losing several positions. He quickly made two pit stops: taking the mediums on lap 35 before swapping them for softs five laps later. The championship leader eventually took the flag in seventh.

Haas drivers Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher also stopped just once with split strategies, finishing in 12th and 13th places on the medium and soft tyres, respectively.

2022 Formula 1 Singapore GP Race Results

Pos	No	Driver	Country	Team	Time	Points	Overall
1.	11	Sergio Perez	Mexico	Red Bull Racing Honda	2:02:15.238	25	235
2.	16	Charles Leclerc	Monaco	Scuderia Ferrari	+7.595s	18	237
3.	55	Carlos Sainz	Spain	Scuderia Ferrari	+15.305s	15	202
4.	4	Lando Norris	Great Britain	Mclaren Racing	+26.133s	12	100
5.	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Australia	McLaren Racing	+58.282s	10	29
6.	18	Lance Stroll	Canada	Aston Martin F1 Team	+61.330s	8	19
7.	1	Max Verstappen	Netherlands	Red Bull Racing Honda	+63.825s	6	341
8.	5	Sebastian Vettel	Germany	Aston Martin F1 Team	+65.032s	4	24
9.	44	Lewis Hamilton	Great Britain	Mercedes-AMG Petronas	+66.515s	2	170
10.	10	Pierre Gasly	France	Scuderia AlphaTauri	+74.576s	1	23
11.	77	Valtteri Bottas	Finland	Alfa Romeo F1 Team	+93.844s	0	46
12.	20	Kevin Magnussen	Denmark	Haas F1 Team	+97.610s	0	22
13.	47	Mick Schumacher	Germany	Haas F1 Team	+1 lap	0	12
14.	63	George Russell	Great Britain	Mercedes-AMG Petronas	+2 laps	0	197
15.	22	Yuki Tsunoda	Japan	Scuderia AlphaTauri	DNF	0	11
16.	31	Esteban Ocon	France	Alpine F1 Team	DNF	0	66
17.	45	Alexander Albon	Thailand	Williams Racing	DNF	0	2
18.	14	Fernando Alonso	Spain	Alpine F1 Team	DNF	8	59
19.	6	Nicholas Latifi	Canada	Williams Racing	DNF	0	0
10.	24	Zhou Guanyu	China	Alfa Romeo F1 Team	DNF	0	6

2022 Constructor Standings

Pos	Picture	Team	Points
1.		Red Bull Racing	759
1.		Scuderia Ferrari	554
3.		Mercedes-AMG F1 Team	515
4.		Alpine F1 Team	173
5.		McLaren Racing	159
6.		Alfa Romeo Racing	55
7.		Aston Martin F1 Team	55
8.		Haas F1 Team	37
9.		Scuderia AlphaTauri	35
10.		Williams Racing	8

Here are the team-by-team highlights:

Red Bull Racing

 

Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Sergio Pérez held off the challenge of Ferraris to win the 2022 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix in challenging wet-dry conditions. The Mexican driver had started from second on the grid but passed the Monegasque at the first corner and withstood heavy pressure for large portions as he secured his second victory of the season.

Team-mate Max Verstappen, who needed to win the race from eighth on the grid to have any chance of claiming his second successive title, looked to be coming into contention for a podium place before an error derailed his chances.

The Dutch driver finished in seventh place, with his world championship lead reduced to 104 points. However, he will still be able to close out a dominant season in Japan next weekend.

Max Verstappen

First of all, well done to Checo today. He put in an outstanding performance. From my side, it was a frustrating weekend. The race didn’t start well; I had an anti-stall, so I lost a lot of positions at the start. From there onwards, I got myself back into a good position after switching to slicks, but when I wanted to go for the move on Lando, I braked, hit a big bump and bottomed out and locked up. I boxed for new tyres as I had a massive flat spot, so I had to start all over again from the back. It’s tough to pass people on this track, especially when we’ve all got our tyres up to temperature, so I was stuck for a while. It was good to get a few points, but that’s not what we are here for—time to focus on Japan.

Sergio Pérez

I am so happy to get this victory for my Team and me. It means a lot to me. I haven’t been on the podium the last couple of races, but I was always working under the radar and making big noises behind the scenes, so I am super proud of the performance today. Mentally it was tough, and you had to stay alert for the whole race. It was super tricky in the conditions today, and people underestimate how difficult it is to drive in those; going through the final sector was so hard. There was a bit of miscommunication with the safety car, I think. He was going fast in places where I couldn’t keep up with him and then slowing where I could go fast. We were driving on slicks in the wet, trying to keep the temperature, which is problematic. When they told me I was under investigation, I just pushed like qualifying for 15 laps to get Charles as big a gap as possible.

Christian Horner – Team Principal & CEO

That was world-class from Checo. It is right up there as one of his best drives. He was always fighting, and even though he had a lot thrown his way, he managed to stay on top. The safety car could have been a real stumbling block, but how many times have we had to deal with a safety car lap, and how many precedents are there? For us, this time, it was a none issue. The stewards took their time with it, but they reached the right decision. It would have been an incredible shame to have taken that victory away from Checo. It was a massive result for him, and we are super proud of him.

Conversely, it has been a tough weekend for Max, he had a lot against him today, and while he was very patient, it did not go his way. He kept having to attack the field from some distance, then he spun, then had to pit, then attack from behind again. He was always fighting, even down to those last few laps. It was a shame, but that shouldn’t detract from a spectacular drive from Checo.

Red Bull Racing Honda best pictures:

Scuderia Ferrari

 

Scuderia Ferrari leaves Singapore with a good point haul after both drivers finished on the podium. However, there is a feeling that the win might have been on the cards at Marina Bay. Charles Leclerc finished second, and Carlos Sainz third at the end of an eventful race, the drivers and team delivering a performance that showed the F1-75 is very much on the pace.

The race produced plenty of thrills, resulting in the balance until just a handful of laps from the flag. The outcome was decided at the start when Sergio Perez managed to get ahead of Charles, who got some wheelspin on the damp track after leading off the line. Carlos was excellent, getting past Lewis Hamilton at the first corner to go third.

The race featured several Safety Car and Virtual periods, both real and virtual, each time after a driver crashed into the barriers or stopped on track. The team and Charles tried everything to get ahead, including being the first front-run pit to switch from Intermediate to Medium tyres. However, the fact that the track was still damp off the racing line meant that overtaking was impossible. Shortly after Charles and Carlos had pitted, the race was neutralised one last time after Yuki Tsunoda crashed. At the restart, Leclerc set off in pursuit of Perez, pressuring the Mexican almost to the finish. But in the closing laps, Charles began to have problems with the front tyres, which saw him drop to seven seconds behind the leader (reduced to two after Perez received a five-second penalty).

This was his eighth podium of the season, made up of three wins plus two-second places in this season’s Sprint races. As for Carlos, he managed to fend off first Lewis Hamilton and then Lando Norris, bringing home an important third place. It is his ninth podium of the season, which includes a win at Silverstone and a third in the Sprint in Austria. He is now fifth in the Drivers’ standings, just one point adrift of George Russell.

Carlos Sainz #55

It was quite a strange race for me, to be honest. I had a good start and managed to get Lewis, but for some reason, I struggled with pace in the first stint with the Intermediates and only towards the end of the race did I recover it. But by then it was already too late. We need to look into it because I’ve been quick all weekend and today I lost all feeling with the car.

On a positive note, we managed to do a race without mistakes in these tricky conditions, which was not easy today, bringing home a solid result with both cars on the podium. We’ll go at it again in Japan next week.

Charles Leclerc #16

Our pace was excellent today, so it’s a shame to finish second. We had some wheel spin at the start and didn’t get away as well as Checo (Perez). That put us on the back foot. I pushed to put pressure on Checo, but my front tyres got a bit too warm, and he started pulling away.

As I’ve already said, I want to use these last races to improve our execution, and I think we have taken a step in the right direction today.

Mattia Binotto, Team Principal & Managing Director

We are disappointed with the result of today’s race. It’s been quite a while since we have been chasing a win, and today we came close. We picked up many points thanks to second and third place. Overall, it was a difficult weekend to manage, but the car worked well in both the wet and the dry.

Here in Singapore, Ferrari showed that it had gotten over the difficulties of Spa and Zandvoort, and we got our performance back on track, which bodes well for the coming races.

Scuderia Ferrari best pictures:

Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team

 

A disappointing result for the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team in Singapore on an evening that had promised much more.

Lewis was in the hunt for the podium until a lockup under challenging conditions caused front wing damage, costing him time and positions as he pitted to change the nose. George went to slicks early in the race and lost time but was still set to score points until a collision with Mick Schumacher caused a puncture and relegated him to P14. The W13 showed glimpses of competitive performance over the weekend, which is encouraging for the remaining five races this season.

Lewis Hamilton

I think we started with a pretty decent weekend, and it was just regrettable at the end. No matter how hard I tried, it was just impossible to overtake. Today was about who gets on the slicks first, and it would have been slice and dice with Carlos, which I was working towards. But that went out of the window when I had that lockup going into Turn 7. Your heart sinks slightly, but you get back up again and try. My apologies to the Team; it’s a shame we didn’t manage to secure more points today. But we live, we learn, and we will recover. We have lots to review from this weekend, and I’m looking forward to Suzuka.

George Russell

We took a risk today going on slicks, and it could have paid off with the Safety Car, but then I had the incident with Mick. I don’t know what happened. We need to review it. I’m disappointed we didn’t score any points this weekend, but I’m pleased that the issues with the brakes we experienced in FP3 had been resolved and our confidence restored. We showed how fast our car could be, and I’m still proud of the team because we are making good progress. I got a lot of confidence and optimism today that we have a competitive car. It was an enjoyable race, although out of the points – I like the challenging conditions that Singapore brings, but obviously, we want to finish much higher up. We have lots of work to do ahead of Suzuka, but it was positive to experience the car’s potential today.

Toto Wolff

This season has given us several tough lessons – and today was another one. We started from opposite ends of the grid with our two cars, but we couldn’t capitalise on the car’s race pace with either of them when it came to an end result. Lewis was fighting for the podium for much of the race – but also battling a car balance that was on a knife edge today, under challenging conditions and on the bumpy surface. After he locked up and damaged the wing, the stop to change tyres and the nose cost him position – then he lost out even more when cars ahead pitted under Safety Car and jumped ahead. That left him stuck in a train of cars on very similar aged tyres, and he couldn’t make up any ground.

For George, we rolled the dice on dry tyres when he was running out of points – in hindsight, it was clearly too early, but he had nothing to lose, so we were prepared to take the gamble. Even so, as the race unfolded, he was still on course to make it back to the points until the collision with Mick, which put him last on the road. Today’s biggest frustration is that we couldn’t build on the signs of competitive performance we saw in FP2 and Qualifying. Our championship fight for P2 has got significantly more complicated with this result, but the only thing to do is to collect ourselves and throw our energy into the next race in Suzuka to rebuild momentum.”

Mercedes-AMG F1 Team best pictures:

McLaren Racing

 

Hear from McLaren Formula 1 drivers Lando Norris, Daniel Ricciardo, and Team Principal Andreas Seidl after the 2022 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix.

After a delayed start due to heavy rain, we got a great launch off the line as Lando leapt ahead of Alonso and into fifth, whilst Daniel gained three places from 16th to 13th. Lando and Daniel held their positions after a Lap Eight safety car, which was brought out following a collision between Zhou and Latifi that left the Alfa Romeo stranded on track. Daniel was promoted into the points when Alonso retired from fifth on Lap 21, causing a Virtual Safety Car. Lando gained fourth from Hamilton when the Mercedes driver hit the wall in front of him. Lando and Daniel were promoted to third and fifth, respectively, as drivers in front of them chose to pit.

A second safety car was required to clear away Tsunoda’s stricken Alpha Tauri, which gave us a chance to pit. Lando switched to Mediums, returning third, and Daniel took on Softs, returning sixth. Verstappen made an audacious move on Lando for fourth, but the Red Bull locked up and ran wide, re-joining in eighth, with Daniel gaining fifth. Lando attempted to chase down a podium in the remaining laps but could not find a way past Sainz.

Lando Norris

A very good day, with both cars in the top five. It was a tough race, especially with the conditions, but the whole team did a great job today. We scored many points, which was so crucial for the Constructors’ Championship. Well done to the entire team. I’m pleased.

Daniel Ricciardo

I’m thrilled. I haven’t had a top five all year, so I’m very pleased with that. I feel like some things fell in our favour today, but I also think we were very patient and mature. It was very tempting to jump on a slick and try to be a hero in the position we were in – but I think we were just sensible, bided our time, and that obviously allowed an opportunity with other cars and then a Safety Car. I’m really pleased the first lap was good, and we also made some positions there. So, we did everything right. We maximised a top five, which was a big one for the team in the Constructors’ Championship, so everyone’s got a smile on their faces.

Andreas Seidl

Twenty-two points! Back in the game! Thanks to the entire team for delivering an excellent result this weekend, in hot, humid conditions here at the track in Singapore, back at the MTC and our colleagues at Mercedes HPP. Daniel and Lando both had superb drives today in tricky conditions. They did not put a wheel wrong on a day when many of their peers went off – but equally, they benefitted from great teamwork and clear communication from their strategists, engineers and the pit crew, who once again delivered.

We made the right calls today when judging the best course of action was very tricky. While we were in a good position from early in the race, in these conditions, particularly on this track, it is always tempting to jump early, switch to the slicks and try to grab even more. We had patience, two reliable cars, and solid pitstops, all of which were crucial factors in the result today. Special mention for Daniel – from P16 to P5 is a magnificent achievement. Both he and everyone on his side of the garage have worked so hard and shown so much commitment this year, and it makes me very happy to see his best result of the season so far.

Beyond the result, the upgrade that we ran on Lando’s car worked as we expected, which is a big positive. We’re looking forward to it being fitted on both cars in Japan.

“We won’t get carried away with the result today. It’s good to be back up to P4 in the Constructors’ Championship, but we’re in tough competition with a solid Alpine team. We’ll keep our heads down and keep working hard until the final lap in Abu Dhabi… but first up, Suzuka!

McLaren Racing best pictures:

Alpine F1 Team

 

BWT Alpine F1 Team faced its first double retirement of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 season today as both Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon failed to finish the 2022 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix.

Both drivers retired in quick succession as the team looked to identify suspected power unit issues on both cars.

Heavy rain prior to the race brought a one-hour and five-minute delay to the start with both drivers beginning on Intermediate tyres. Fernando – on his 350th Grand Prix start, a Formula 1 record, lost a position to Lando Norris at the start and held sixth in the early running. After an early Safety Car, Fernando was defending from Max Verstappen for the sixth place before his retirement on lap 21.

Esteban started from seventeenth on Intermediates and looked to close towards the top ten. He retired from the race while running in thirteenth on lap 27.

The team will investigate the issues which brought its double retirement while heading to Suzuka for next weekend’s return of the Japanese Grand Prix.

Fernando Alonso

It’s a pity to retire early from today’s race, which means we’ve missed some decent points in the championship. I think we can look at the positives and we can be very proud of our performance this weekend again. We fought for the top five and six positions on Saturday, similar to today’s race. It was a very tricky race under challenging conditions, and it was hard to see the dry line appearing on the track. We have another race coming next weekend, so at least we can shift focus immediately to Japan and get back into the points there.

Esteban Ocon

It’s been a frustrating day for the team. On my side, a power unit issue ended our race early and I know the team is currently investigating the exact cause of the failure. It is, of course, very disappointing to leave Singapore with a double retirement but the positive we can take away is that our car has been performing well all weekend, and we know we have a good pace. We race again next week in Suzuka, my favourite track on the calendar, so right now, we will dust ourselves down and come back stronger in Japan.

Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal

Unfortunately, we had a double retirement from today’s Singapore Grand Prix, which is a pity as we’ve been very competitive all weekend. It looks like we suffered a similar power unit issue on both cars, which we will investigate in detail. We must identify the root cause of what happened and implement preventative measures to avoid a repeat. Regarding the progress of our race, it was challenging with the drying conditions, and we were about to enter a window where we could have made the call for dry tyres before our retirements. These days do happen in racing from time to time, and while it’s a disappointing feeling within the team now, we have another race next weekend in Japan where we have the opportunity to recover. As a team, we’ll take this one in our stride, and we already look forward to returning to Suzuka and racing at a fantastic circuit.

Alpine F1 Team best pictures:

Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN

 

Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN endured a tough weekend in Singapore, as Valtteri Bottas brought his C42 home in 11th place after a damp-to-dry race on the Marina Bay circuit. Team-mate, Zhou Guanyu, saw his evening end early as he was the victim of a collision with Nicholas Latifi, the resulting damage putting the Chinese driver out of the running.

Despite the challenging race, the team maintains its sixth position in the Constructors’ Championship with 52 points.

Valtteri Bottas (car number 77)

Considering where we started today, we probably got as much as possible. Of course, it’s always frustrating when you finish just one position away from the points, but at least we avoided any mistakes and kept it on track. Towards the end, the soft tyres were starting to drop, and I couldn’t close in on Gasly, but I think it was a good call to try going with them in the second stint today: I don’t think any other compound would have given us a better result. We can still take a few positives from the weekend: we showed good pace on Friday, and we have some upgrades coming to Japan; our car has proved to be working a bit better in dry conditions, so let’s hope for favourable weather in Suzuka to kick back right away.

Zhou Guanyu (car number 24)

It’s disappointing to finish a race with such a crash. There was not much I could do. I was side-by-side with Latifi in turn four, and he closed the space entirely and put me into the wall. The damage to the suspension was terminal, he got a penalty for this incident, but it’s not going to change much for me. It was not what we wanted, and it’s especially annoying as I think we had a decent pace. We just move on from today and shift our focus to Suzuka: it’s a new chance for us to do well, and I look forward to racing on that track.

Frédéric Vasseur, Team Principal

Despite the good pace we showed on Friday, it has been a difficult weekend. Yesterday’s wet qualifying compromised our day, as it was always going to be challenging to come back from 14th and 15th on the grid. The race itself was not easy, especially on a damp track: Zhou couldn’t do anything to avoid being taken out when he was showing good pace; Valtteri probably got as much out of the race as possible, and it was only a fast-charging Verstappen who kept him out of the points in the end. We tried giving him a fighting chance with the soft tyres, but in the end, that was not enough to finish in the top ten. We move on to Suzuka now, knowing our pace in the dry was ok and that we will be introducing some updates that should give us a boost in performance. We keep fighting to preserve P6 in the championship.

Alfa Romeo F1 Team best pictures:

Haas F1 Team

 

Haas F1 Team finished the 2022 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix, held Sunday at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, with Kevin Magnussen 12th and Mick Schumacher 13th.

Both drivers started on Pirelli Cinturato Green intermediate tires after torrential rain fell during the race build-up, prompting a 65-minute delay to the start procedure. Magnussen started from the ninth place but was involved in contact with Max Verstappen, causing damage to his front wing endplate, which race officials questionably deemed sufficient for a black and orange flag.

That mandated an unscheduled pit stop, leaving Magnussen out of sync with his rivals, as he came in on lap 8 for fresh intermediates and a new nose section. Magnussen stopped again on lap 33, changing onto Pirelli P Zero Yellow medium tires once the circuit dried, the Dane bringing home his VF-22 in 12th at the checkered.

Schumacher started 12th and avoided trouble on the opening lap before settling into a rhythm in pursuit of the points-paying places. The German took on mediums on lap 34 and emerged in 10th after a safety car period caused when Yuki Tsunoda crashed.

Unfortunately, Schumacher sustained a left-rear puncture following contact with the Mercedes of George Russell and was forced to pit once more, taking on a set of softs – substantial race time lost in the process. Schumacher ultimately finished a lap down in 13th.

Kevin Magnussen, Driver No. 20

I had very slight damage, but it was nothing. I got the black and orange flag which to me seems unnecessary as the part wasn’t about to fall off. There were no safety concerns as it has tethers to the car – it wasn’t even moving. We finished P12 when we had an extra pit stop that I didn’t need, so it’s frustrating. It was a positive Saturday yesterday, and we’ve seen the car has some pace, so that’s at least encouraging. Hopefully, we can keep it up moving forward.

Mick Schumacher, Driver No. 47

The contact with George (Russell) and consequently getting a puncture probably ruined our race. To finish P13, I think we can say in one way that we’re happy that we finished, as not many people did. Being the only rookie coming to the race to finish is also an achievement so we can tick that box. We had the pace, we had the pace for points, and unfortunately, we just got unlucky. Nonetheless, we’re going to Suzuka with a good feeling.

Guenther Steiner, Team Principal, Haas F1 Team

A disappointing race as we could’ve scored points here realistically, without dreaming of them. During the incident on Lap 1 with Kevin, we lost all positions, and again, we received a black and orange flag, now for the third time, when there is no need for it. We have made it very clear to the FIA on the past two occasions, and it’s just like you have your back against the wall. Mick was close to points, almost in it, and then he had contact with Russell, which put him out of the race for points. We showed what was possible but didn’t bring any points home.

Haas F1 Team best pictures:

Scuderia AlphaTauri

 

It was also a day of mixed results for Scuderia AlphaTauri as Pierre Gasly showed plenty of pace and rounded out the points-scoring positions, while Japanese teammate Yuki Tsunoda crashed out on lap 34.

Pierre Gasly

I’m very disappointed today. That’s not the result we should’ve had. We were having an excellent race, behind Lando and ahead of the two Aston Martins, but we took a massive risk boxing early and lost some positions. I don’t fully understand why we made this decision, so we’ll need to review everything and learn from this mistake. We left a lot of points on the table today, so it hurts quite a bit, particularly in our Championship battle fight, as there was ample opportunity today to move forward, and we didn’t grab it.

Yuki Tsunoda

The conditions were really tricky out there today. It was difficult judging the move from Inters to slicks, but we went early, which meant it was super hard to drive, but we were starting to gain time, so things were looking positive. Unfortunately, I made a mistake, I completely misjudged the braking point, carried too much speed into the corner, and went into the wall, so I’m frustrated with myself. I need to go away and reflect on this weekend and then prepare for my home race next week, where I’m looking forward to driving an F1 car around Suzuka for the first time.

Jody Egginton – Technical Director

After all of the hard work put in by the team and drivers over the weekend, we have failed to maximise the opportunity to score good points with both cars tonight. This is due to our engineering team committing too early to the switch to dry tyres. This has cost track position for both drivers, with Yuki also, unfortunately, sliding off track soon after. This meant we had only got one car to the flag and came away with far fewer points than we should have. As a team, we will review the race in detail to understand the areas for improvement and take onboard the required learning to be better able to exploit such chances next time, as we missed a very good opportunity tonight, which we needed to grab with both hands.

Scuderia AlphaTauri Team best pictures:

Aston Martin Formula One Team

 

The team delivered its best season result under the lights at Singapore, as Lance and Sebastian finished inside the top eight in very tricky track conditions at Marina Bay.

Lance Stroll

It feels so good to pick up sixth place tonight, which is my season’s best result. It was also a good day for Seb, so we have come away with a big bunch of points.

That is great for everybody in the team who is working so hard. It was a tricky race: the track surface was very slippery for the whole race, and it was not easy to stay out of trouble.

It took a very long time to dry, just as it did yesterday. It was just a case of waiting for the areas with the new asphalt to dry out before the switch to slicks, which we timed really well.

We have moved up in the teams championship, which is important and a nice boost as we enter the final part of the season.

Sebastian Vettel

I think we can be happy with a strong result for the team and scoring important points. It was not easy with some very difficult track conditions.

The asphalt took a long time to dry, and timing the switch to dry tyres was critical. Maybe we went a lap too early, but overall I am happy with the result.

I had a solid start to the race, and the first lap was great fun. I was not very patient and pushed hard and gained a few places.

After that, I concentrated on looking after my Intermediate tyres because we knew that the track would take a long time to dry, and they needed to last.

In the closing laps, I had a big battle with Lewis [Hamilton] and Max [Verstappen]. I was defending for many laps, and it was a shame that Max got ahead of us on the final lap.

Mike Krack, Team Principal

Lance drove fast yet patiently to sixth place, scoring an excellent eight World Championship points for us; Sebastian, finishing eighth, added four more, pipped for seventh on the final lap by a hard-charging [Max] Verstappen.

On a very slippery track surface, both our drivers handled an extremely tricky task superbly. As a result, we have climbed a couple of places in the Constructors’ World Championship, which is a welcome reward for the steady progress we have been making recently.

Formula One is a team effort, and in particular, I want to pay tribute to our mechanics, who have worked long and hard in very humid conditions over the past few days and executed our pitstops brilliantly evening. I also want to thank the team back home at Silverstone, who also did a fantastic job.

From here, we go to Suzuka, a very different kind of circuit, and we hope to maintain our forward momentum there.

Aston Martin Cognizant F1 Team best pictures:

Williams Racing

 

The 2022 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix ended much earlier than we would have liked, with both drivers failing to see the chequered flag around the Marina Bay Street Circuit. A torrential downpour 90 minutes before the race was scheduled to start led to a 65-minute delay, with proceedings underway on intermediate tyres.

Alex Albon

It’s a bit frustrating and was tricky out there tonight. It’s confusing with nothing different from the previous lap. However, I just locked up on the front left with the wet making it difficult to predict the brakes. Whilst there wasn’t an issue, and ultimately it comes down to driver error, the brakes are very tricky in the wet, and it’s hard to get them in the right window. We knew coming into Singapore, we likely wouldn’t be fighting for points, so whilst it’s difficult, we can look to Japan and come back fighting.

Nicholas Latifi

I looked in the mirrors from the previous corner to see where Zhou Guanyu was. I didn’t see he was there, so I took my usual approach to the racing line on the following corner. I don’t know if he was in a blind spot in the car where the mirror couldn’t pick up. Unfortunately, he was there and in hindsight, I needed to leave more room, but I could only go off what I could see in the mirrors. The aim was to see the chequered flag and learn from the experience, with it being my first race here. However, the incident caused suspension damage, forcing us to retire the car.

Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance:

Once the race started, conditions were like those we had yesterday, with intermediate tyres the correct choice for the race start as the track was taking a long time to dry,” he explained. Pace depended on whether the intermediates’ wear rate matched the track drying rate. Even when the track dried, it remained very slippery, and racing was challenging. Alex’s spin on the opening lap cost him some places but also damaged the car, which harmed the aero for the rest of the weekend. When he hit the wall again, the damage was too significant to continue, and so we retired his car. Nicholas was fighting to hold off Zhou Guanyu early in the race, which ended in contact and suspension damage on Nicholas’s car. It has been a tough couple of days, and we have some work to do to get the cars ready for the race next weekend. However, we look forward to returning to Suzuka and taking on the challenge of one of the drivers’ favourite tracks on the Formula One calendar.

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