Singapore GP 2012 - Race

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Fourth pole in a row for McLaren. Hamilton was quickest when it matter the most, at the end of Q3. Vettel was third after dominating every single session behind Maldonado who pulled off another of his surprises to start in the front row tomorrow. Button was next ahead of Alonso with DiResta in 6th in front of Webber to confirm Force India’s great form in practice. Only the Lotus of Grosjean made the cut and both Mercedes sat out Q3 to save tyres and keep their options open to choose the best compound at the start of the race.

We had most of our selections destroyed by Maldonado with a total of only 8 colleagues scoring points, with Maria, Champ Ian and Ricky collecting 2 points (1-3) and singles for Carlos, Fernando, Fredrik, Curro and Lou. Our 2012 record is so pathetically bad that even our best performers (Rocco -12,  Joe, Fernando & Ian-11) have averages below 1 point per QF session!  Save the comments...

The grid for tomorrow:

HAM  MAL  VET  BUT  ALO  DIR  WEB  GRO  SCH  ROS

This is the most difficult GP the teams are facing this season. Driver fatigue, mechanical stress and strategy make this a race of attrition that only the strongest will survive. For the drivers this is more like a Marathon than a ‘normal’ race: it’s hot and humid, the bumps and bouncing over the kerbs torture them constantly in the longest race in the calendar (close to the 2 hour limit), there are no visual reference points, most corners look alike. There is no room for error: it’s narrow on the tight corners, slippery and extremely demanding on tyres and brakes -they are under full brake pedal pressure 23% of the lap and there’s not time between corners to cool them off- no wonder the Safety Car makes an appearance every year making strategy a complete guessing game. Last season this was a 3 stopper but in general this year’s races require one stop less than last, the challenge is that both compounds are degrading very quickly, in as little as 10 laps for the red-options.  The best alternative for the front runners will be to make the 61 laps in 2 stops but that makes them vulnerable to a Safety Car intervention. In only 6 laps behind the Safety Car the tyres will reduce enough wear to save one pit stop. The problem with 3 stops is that the pitlane it’s too long and has the slowest speed limited at 60kph taking 30 seconds to navigate. 

The opening laps will be critical to implement any strategy because the cars line up at the grid with the heaviest fuel load of any race (155 Kg) aggravating tyre wear, particularly for the top 8 starting on used super-softs.

This has all the offerings to be a dramatic GP, the perfect mix for an eventful one and another puzzle for us. The pole sitter has won 3 of the 4 editions in Singapore; the weather will be mostly cloudy but dry.

Here it goes, who knows? Cato – HAM  VET BUT  ALO  SCH WEB

Good luck, enjoy!

Back to Comments          Back to InfoNews