Closest Race of 2023 - Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix 2023 - Personal Thoughts

Singapore 2023 was Carlos Sainz Jr his second win at a Grand Prix but as he very well mention this is his first "Smooth Operation", Carlos IQ went through the roof as he on purpose made Lando Norris defend the front row for him, in this case it was Carlos Sainz getting away when he needed to keep the gap against Lando but on those slow corners giving it back so he could defend his position, at the same time hold up the Mercedes cars; with DRS, I would say that the only two other drivers that have this mind set on the grid are Fernando Alonso, George Russell, Alex Albon and Checo Perez, for the rest of the grid there are very individualist drivers, yes its a sport that you have to be that way to stay on top but this time Carlos Sainz proof its not all the time you need to race just the guy behind/front of you.

Ferrari, their car is improving by a lot and as I expected since last year, the superior driver will be Carlos Sainz once he had the car suit him, all Leclerc had before was a fast car design around him, some may say the same thing from Red Bull Racing where the car is design for Max but it is what it is for every second driver on most teams, Sainz all 2022 and 2023 has demonstrate to be the most cold head and smart driver from the two, in Ferrari there is no democracy, its straight dictatorship and it would not be a surprise if we see the team turn the table for Leclerc, after all F1 is a sport where money talks, sports of billions and every single team on the grid is there to win and make a ton of money, as for the car it does look a different animal since Monza, they still have degradation problems but not as bad as before.

Over all this is what every Formula 1 driver wants to see, top five cars battling out, I'm not a fan of Verstappen iron fist ruling, its just boring, now that we got McLaren and Ferrari in the Mix is way more interesting and I'm not falling sleep half the race.

I have said before, I'm not a Ferrari fan, even if Red Bull Racing got it right Ferrari was still a strong car during the weekend, I thought tradition would continue as Ferrari is for a the most part a one lap car.

@skiptvads/re-leothreads-2p7fs2rqx

Here a comment I made on Friday about Ferrari been the two fastest during FP2

Source In my personal opinion another driver that did great in Singapore GP was George Russell, after a brilliant/lucky pit stop to put up Medium Compound Tires 2023 (Yellow) after Esteban Ocon car broke down on lap 44 , on this shot he clips the wall right at the corner of this banner but you cant tell how close he was and then broke the right front arm of the car, got no steering so goes into the wall, small mistakes that can end the race in any second but that's just part of the game, during this time Russell was in a lot of pressure from Hamilton, all this happening on the last lap to finis the race.

Source The most obvious question is, What Happen to Red Bull Racing?, from my understanding their setup was totally wrong, the car would not turn, the car had no grip, you could see how many times the rear complains and basically drift when either Max or Checo demand power, this was not a driver problem, both drivers could not make it to Q3 having same grip difficulties, the resurface areas of the track didn't help them but this was the same for all teams.

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Source In my opinion Red Bull Racing took the wrong approach as trying to reverse changes like rear wing and new floor from the car on a track that have change and so did the car, its not the same car from 2022 and both Max and Checo are not the same drivers, specially how Max has dominated the car for the entire year, going back and forward with parts thinking that could be the problem puts them in a position probably of guessing without much time to proof their theories, the team already knew Singapore GP was a race the will have problems based on simulation, from what I have read online their suspension was too soft for this track, not sure if they made such extreme changes where the bumps of the make the car loose grip either when the suspension expands or contracts making the car to bottom out, probably if they had not change the car a bit from Italy they would have perform better. This was not a car design problem nor a driver problem, it was their setup, Red Bull Racing have done a lot more than other teams in history of Formula 1, the only thing that end their winning streak was themself have the car setup so wrong for this race.

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With ten laps to go Sainz radio was "Gap to Lando every lap", this was on lap 57 after they were notified Mercedes had new Mediums, closing the gap, not only this tells how smart Sainz was to use Lando as his main defense weapon but how good the McLaren is, this is probably a moment Lando has been waiting for a very long time, McLaren finally has a car with a winning shot to win a race, since Silverstone their car finally wake up and drivers like Piastri and Lando show the world how now their car is a true contender to win races so things are not as easy as before for Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen, yes in Monza they won by a six second gap that could be more and Checo did a good race too for the one two but still things are changing, there still 2025 with the same car concept, who knows if they could keep improving their car but the truth is that Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari are improving too, even at Qualifying you have one lap cars like the Williams with Alex Albon improving by a lot.