Crazy triumph of Carlos Sainz and Ferrari in Singapore
Crazy triumph of Carlos Sainz and Ferrari in Singapore
At the end of the most beautiful Grand Prix in recent years, Ferrari and Carlos Sainz triumph in Singapore beating the McLaren of Lando Norris and the Mercedes of Lews Hamilton, who takes advantage of the exit of teammate George Russell on the last lap. Fourth was the second Ferrari, that of Charles Leclerc, fifth was Max Verstappen, who saw his series of consecutive victories interrupted at ten and credit è to a stratospheric Sainz.
Lance Stroll does not start due to the accident in yesterday’s qualifying and is not replaced. Great start by Leclerc who overtakes Russell at the first corner with Sainz keeping the lead from the pole position while Hamilton cuts the corner completely and ends up ahead of his teammate and behind the two Maranello cars but then has to give the position back to Russell and Norris and he does it with both of them although to the McLaren driver he gives it back after 6 laps. Meanwhile, Tsunoda retires and Verstappen è eighth after six laps.
Up front, the two Ferraris stay in the lead by upping the pace on lap 10 but then the pit wall tells Leclerc, who has the soft tire, to slow down until he has a three-second gap to Sainz, who instead has the medium tires. On lap 19° Sargeant goes into the wall damaging the front wing and sowing pieces of carbon, so the next lap the safety car comes in and everyone returns to the pits except the two Red Bulls, who have hard tires, and the two Alfa-Sauber cars. Both Ferraris mount the hard ones.
When it is back to having free track Sainz keeps the lead but Verstappen è second ahead of Verstappen and Russell then there are Perez, Norris and Leclerc, who as usual è was penalized by a stop longer than his teammate by more than three seconds because è the mechanics do not give him the green light immediately shortly after the Monegasque is overtaken by Hamilton while the Red Bulls are in a tire crisis with Perez is passed by Norris and Verstappen by Russell: these days è a very rare thing an overtake on the track against the Dutchman!
Great fight between Perez, Alonso and Ocon for seventh position, initially the Spaniard cannot pass Checo, rather, he is passed by Ocon and then both overtake the Mexican who finally on lap 40° stops and the next lap it is the turn of his “captain”, both sink to the back of the standings for a Red Bull strategy this time incomprehensible. Up front Sainz holds off Russell, Norris and Hamilton.
On lap 43° Ocon’s Alpine goes silent shortly after the pits, a decision is made for the virtual safety car and on lap 45° Mercedes decides to change the tires on Russell and Hamiltonwho return to the track with a set of medium tires saved in qualifying in fourth and fifth position behind Leclerc and restarted the race they go after the Ferrarista eating him two seconds per lap and overtake him with nine and eight laps to go.
The two Mercedes catch Norris and Sainz when there are less than five gris to go so there are four of them vying for victory in a beautiful finish. Russell attacks Norris on the fourth-to-last lap but the McLaren driver resists and Sainz holds on to him lì less than a second just enough for him to open the DRS and not be attacked by the Mercedes. On the’last lap Russell crashes and so Hamilton climbs on the lowest step of the podium while Sainz, with a masterpiece race, gets his second career race after last year’s Silverstone race ahead of an equally good Nrris.
Leclerc è fourth and will certainly not be happy while an incredible Verstappen who was fifteenth after the pit stop, finishes fifth ahead of Gasly and Piastri, Perez è eighth, an increasingly positive Lawson è ninth and Magnussen è tenth.
