Singapore GP analysis: Ferrari finally come out on top

The tables finally seem to have turned on the Red Bull team as Ferrari managed to keep it together to take pole position.

The rest of the field had its dramas for quite an entertaining Grand Prix.

Fernando's struggle

Fernando Alonso has had a decent season so far. The start of the season had Fernando and Aston Martin at the top of the grid fighting for P2, although the more the season went on the results started to drop to the midfield once other cars got upgraded.

However, this is the most disappointing result for the Silverstone-based team this season and the most I've seen Fernando struggle.

He even called the car "undriveable" on lap 42. A bit of a change from his more positive description of his car at the beginning of the season.

For the first time in the 2023 season Alonso has not finished in the top 10, so why has he struggled so much?

It all began when Alonso was rewarded a 5-second time penalty by locking up and cutting the pitlane entry under the first safety car of the Grand Prix.

Later in the race he served his penalty at a pitstop, but this was made even longer due to the crew struggling to put on the rear and front wheels on the AMR23.

In total this pitstop was 25.8 seconds long! Further securing his disappointing 15th-place finish.

It just seemed that the car wasn't performing to its usual standards as Alonso was struggling to keep others behind, such as Max Verstappen and Esteban Ocon.

Both drivers overtook the Spaniard making him lose two positions in a couple of corners.

From qualifying P7 it's been quite the shock of performance this Grand Prix. To finish the stroke of bad luck Fernando also brought out the yellow flag after going into the run-off of turn 14 as it seemed he couldn't turn the car.

Alonso seemed to be able to take away some positives from this lacklustre race.

"In difficult races like Singapore or Monza, all our debriefs, all our meetings with the factory they are extremely productive, it’s the weekends when we learn more in the season."- Fernando Alonso is positive that the team can learn from this weekends mistakes

His teammate on the other hand couldn't say the same for his overall race weekend.

With Lance Stroll having an almost 50G collision with the wall in the last corner of qualifying the Candian thought it'd be best to miss the race, which meant Stroll's race was over before it even began.

This was a scary shunt to witness but shows how robust the AMR23 is as well as how far safety in F1 has improved.

Lance had zero injuries and was very lucky to walk away from that accident.

He further explained his reasoning for sitting out of the race this weekend.

"[The feeling was] just everywhere. I was fine, I was healthy to race, but I wasn’t physically feeling good enough to do Singapore, which is the hardest race of the year... I felt it creeping up on me on Saturday night and I knew it wasn’t going to be fun waking up on Sunday.” Lance was clear on how he needed to rest up to be ready for the upcoming Japan GP.

Overall a weekend to forget for Aston Martin and hopefully a more positive one this weekend in Japan for the team.

A heartbreaking mistake from George Russell

Mercedes was on the up this race putting the pressure on the McLaren and Ferraris, both cars stood a chance of making it onto the podium (especially George Russell).

On Lap 62, the final couple of corners of the Singapore Grand Prix, Russell clipped his front wheel sending him straight into the wall and ending his race from P3 to DNF.

It was a hard watch not just for Mercedes fans, but all Formula One fans to see Russell crash on the last lap.

He drove unbelievably well for all 61 laps but his desperation to get P2 drove him into the wall...

It was clear from post-race interviews how upset and mad at himself George was, there were even moments in some interviews when I thought he was going to cry with frustration.

I hate that this is how George had to end his weekend. The Marina Bay track is the most unforgiving track of all on the calendar, from small to big mistakes they come with unforgiving/ uncorrectable consequences.

One thing I do think Russell can take from this is knowing when to rain it in.

What I mean by this is that it was clear that Russell was not going to catch Lando for P2, but he kept pushing his car and trying to overtake it to the point he made that mistake and went into the wall.

Of course, this desperate need to move up a place when you are so close is what makes F1 and all motorsports interesting, but there comes a time when you need to play the team game and collect those points for the constructors (not like they can catch Red Bull anyway).

A shame for him, but this doesn't at all take away from the stellar drive he had.

Liam Lawson Deserves A Seat In F1

Liam Lawson has been a recurring name in the F1 scene for a short while now.

I didn't expect much from him when I heard he was going to be replacing the injured Daniel Ricciardo.

This was mainly because I had a lot of hype for Nyck de Vries to do well as a rookie.

However, that hype soon turned into disappointment due to his poor results and his inability to gel well with the low-performing Alpha Tauri.

Liam has rightly proved that he deserves a seat in F1 by his short but impressive stint so far.

He seems so comfortable in this car, even though it's one of the lowest-performing on the grid.

Liam has jumped into this car last minute and managed to drive into the points. This is impressive due to the upright low performance this car usually has.

With not even a full season to understand the car's handling, drive and characteristics he seems so comfortable in it.

Lawson managed to qualify for P10 and finished P9 resulting in him receiving his first-ever F1 points.

If Yuki and Daniel Ricciardo are to stay at Alpha Tauri I can see Liam replacing Logan Sargeant after his unfulfilling rookie season.

Liam has proven every time he gets in the car that he deserves a full-time drive however, the most common issue in F1 is that there are not enough teams/seats for every talented driver.

If Lawson is somehow not given an offer to drive for a team next year I'm 100% sure another race category would love to have him. But in my opinion, he belongs in F1.

Lawson increases doubt over Tsuondas

Liam has been consistently defeating teammate Yuki Tsunoda with ease this Season

With the upcoming Japanese Grand Prix happening this week it's truly up to Yuki to further show he deserves to keep his seat.

Yuki hasn't had the best couple of weekends (not to his own fault). His last race in Monza saw him out of the GP before it even began, while this week he didn't even complete a full lap.

The Japanese driver has had constant criticism and speculation shrowd his name.

From whether he deserves his seat or if someone can do better, having Liam do better than Yuki in his first stint in F1 (not even a full season) is dampening Tsunoda's image.

Yuki has made a vast improvement from when he first entered F1, but he's had plenty of time to start getting results for the team.

I don't blame him for doing poorly the last couple of races as his recurring DNF is due to the horrible Alpha Tauri he's driving.

I and other fans this weekend hope to see Yuki bring it to Liam and show that he's here to stay and not to be looked down on.

How did Red Bull get It so wrong?

I have to say I expected to hear the Dutch National anthem once again this weekend but was shocked like many others not to.

The Red Bull team seemed to struggle the entire weekend, ending their 15-race wins streak.

Christian Horner at first seemed to be baffled by the unexplainable lack of performance from both Bulls after losing out in qualifying.

After Max only qualified P11 and Checo P13, the team were confused as to why. Not to mention that both struggled in the race with Verstappen finishing P5 and Sergio P8.

“We knew, coming here, we expected to have closer competition, but it took us a bit by surprise just how far out we were on Friday. We were just not in the right operating window for the car, particularly over a single lap." - Christian Horner

There were rumours that this sudden twist in performance was due to the new technical directive (The TD018 issued by the FIA which went into effect in Singapore) based on the bodywork design elements, particularly the front and rear wings.

However, Horner did claim that this had no effect on their 180 of a performance.

After some post-race analysis, the Red Bull team put their struggle down to changing the ride height due to Singapore's bumpy track.

This resulted in the car losing ground effect and performance from their usually dependable aero underfloor.

This week's race weekend is in Japan, where Red Bull has been strong before. I see Singapore being a one-off anomaly in bad performance.

Forza Ferrari surprise

It was the main shock of the weekend to see Ferrari do so well. With Carlos Sainz qualifying in P1 and Charles Leclerc in P3, it was in question how long those positions would last until a Red Bull or another car sped past them.

Ferrari for a change didn't mess up and took home the trophy under the city lights of Singapore.

After the summer break, Carlos has really stepped up his game. He's finally put his foot down and proven that he shouldn't be looked at as a number two driver.

He reminded me a lot of Fernando Alonso in this race due to his smart strategy mind of thinking far ahead which is hard to do while driving such complicated machinery.

The Spaniard was smart in slowing down to a 0.8-second gap between him and old teammate Lando Norris so he could give Norris DRS to defend against both Mercedes.

This allowed Sainz to bring the car home for a win and keep his tyres good.

This shows what a well-put-together driver he is. It's time others see him for his talent and not underestimate him.

If Sainz can keep this up all Ferrari needs to do is give him a car to beat the Red Bulls and sooner or later he will be a championship winner.

Teammate Charles Leclerc didn't have the best of weekends, he seemed to be a bit lacking compared to his teammate Carlos, but overall it's still a good result for the Italian team.

I and many others were surprised to see Charles be used as the number two driver this weekend.

Leclerc was advised to stay three seconds behind Carlos to hold up those behind him, and even George Russell voiced on the radio how he thought the Monégasque was being "sacrificed" by the team for Sainz's gain.

We've seen this season that Charles has always been above Carlos when it comes to team orders, even if Carlos is ahead...

This is why I'm so surprised to see Ferrari finally support the Spaniard, especially since Charles and team Principle Fred Vasseur have a close relationship.

Fred was the team principal of Alfa Romeo when Charles joined the team for his first seat in F1.

I'm glad that Fred has decided to be more impartial, as I believe this is what Ferrari needs.

Of course, when push comes to shove, team orders need to come in especially when the two are racing each other.

Overall, this is a huge improvement for the team! Tifosi will be in high spirits after a Red Bull for a full couple of years.

What happened To Bottas?

Valtteri Bottas failed to finish this Grand Prix, while Zhou Guanyu finished in 12th place. It was a night when nothing quite went right for the Italian team.

Zhou, unfortunately, started on the unfavourable soft tyres and immediately moved to the hards in an effort to go as close to the finish on that set as possible, they started the Finn on the hard types in the hopes of a late safety car.

However, it was too early to pit either driver when the Safety car eventually appeared as a result of Logan Sargeant's collision with the wall resulting in him losing the front wing of his car.

This incident undermined both of their plans and put them at a disadvantage in comparison to the majority of the field.

But to finish off a below-subpar weekend, the team suffered a DNF from Bottas.

When I and many others were watching the race coverage this weekend out of nowhere Bottas seemed to be out, and nobody really understood why.

It seemed to be that Bottas had a mechanical issue with the gear shifts and was told to stop the car immediately on lap 51.

Alfa are only 5 points about last in the constructors so far and haven't been too impressive.

If I'm honest, most reporters and fans seem to forget about the team from race to race.

It's a shame as the drivers are talented but as per usual in F1 the team's car isn't giving them the chance to be far up the grid.

This weekend in Japan the team need to keep in the points as Alpha Tauri are not far behind them.

Now that the sister Red Bull team has Liam Lawson it's more likely for them to score points and catch the Italian team.