Singapore GP – The point

As usual, Mercedes ruled the roost, dominating also the fourteenth Formula 1 Grand Prix of the season, which took place under floodlights in the circuit of Singapore. The leaders of this season ran the race in their own way, winning with Hamilton a race and a weekend dominated almost from beginning to end.

Well done also for Red Bull and Ferrari with Fernando Alonso, that closed his race at the foot of the podium with a handful of tenths, having driven perversely for the entire weekend and completing an excellent race.

On a city track with Super Soft tyres, Ferrari managed to stay in the wake of top teams. Unfortunately, the race has been penalized from safety car’s entrance, which remained on track for too long.

Raikkonen (eighth at the finish line) suffered a delay of 1’ from the first position and more than 45’’ from the team-mate. For Maranello, this was the first weekend of the new generation, among many tensions, especially relative to Fernando Alonso’s decisions.

Amazing race also for Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel that completed the podium in Singapore. Seeing in action the RB10, it’s clear that they have built a very good car once again.

The Achilles’ heel

Reliability is confirmed as the only Achilles’ heel of the German dreadnought. This time it was up to Nico Rosberg to attend the celebrations of his team-mate, who takes the lead in the world ranking with the seventh success. Now, misfortunes are pretty much matched. With three points of difference (241 for Hamilton against 238 for Rosberg) and five races in the calendar (Japan, Russia, USA, Brazil and Abu Dhabi), World Championship for Mercedes starts now.

The news of this weekend were the really tight advantages, with 9 cars in a little more than 5’’, although seeing the dominance of Mercedes in Qualifying, one could wonder that something didn’t work for them.

As already announced in the last weeks, there are great movements. We will see what will happen in the next days.

Gian Carlo Minardi