
Ferrari have returned to form – at least for the time being. There can be no doubt about that after Sebastian Vettel took pole and controlled the Singapore GP for all of the 61 laps.
Bringing extra intrigue to the 13th round of the championship, Lewis Hamilton retired for the first time this season. The championship leader talked the good talk post-race saying, but for an electronics problem, he felt Mercedes had a strategy to win. But few could agree with him. Retirement or no retirement, Mercedes were well and truly off the pace this weekend – and no one seemed to know why.
Hamilton had dropped out of fourth place, a position inherited by team-mate Nico Rosberg, whose more realistic appraisal suggested he was lucky to be there. In truth, Mercedes had not only been trounced by Ferrari, but second place for Daniel Ricciardo said everything about Red Bull-Renault suddenly being back in the hunt. That was put down to the streets of Singapore having such short straights that only 34 per cent of the lap was under full throttle; in other words, there was less opportunity for Red Bull to be embarrassed by the complained-about shortfall in Renault power.
That was definitely not the case with Ferrari. Serious work in the engine department – in tandem with development by fuel supplier Shell – has observers reckoning the Ferrari power unit is now close to being on a par with Mercedes.
The truth of that supposition will be exposed next weekend at Suzuka, a more conventional race track. But there can be no doubt that the Ferrari chassis played its part. A truly stunning pole position lap by Vettel showed he had every confidence in a car he could take within millimetres of the walls – and get full value from his tyres.
This was where Mercedes seemed to be suffering. Practice showed that the silver cars tended to punish their rear tyres to such an extent that adjustments to compensate led to a handling compromise that denied Hamilton and Rosberg the precision and assurance you need on a track with more corners than any other circuit on the calendar.
Because of Singapore’s constant changes of direction and punishment for the smallest mistakes, there was every reason to believe a Safety Car would affect strategy, just as it had done in every race at Marina Bay since the first in 2008. And so it proved after Nico Hulkenberg and Felipe Massa collided on lap 13. The second appearance of the pace car, however, would be far was less predictable when a spectator took it upon himself to go for a stroll along the edge of the track.
Even though the field was bunched on both occasions, none of these distractions disrupted Vettel’s command at the front. Ricciardo later claimed the Safety Car ruined Red Bull’s strategy of intending to run each stint longer than Ferrari and get the jump on Vettel. But few believed the Australian any more than they accepted Hamilton’s positive spin on his failure to score points.
Vettel’s third win has brought him to within striking distance of Rosberg in second place in the championship, with Hamilton’s advantage obviously not what it was. But the true state of play is likely to be confirmed next weekend in Japan.
Singapore may have been a blip on the Mercedes radar but rivals are hoping it’s the start of a decline at a crucial stage of the season. There’s 150 points up for grabs between now and Abu Dhabi on 29 November…