Well, we learned (if we didn’t know already) that Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes provided an unbeatable situation. Pole position by three tenths of a second, putting him at the front of the pack as the grid raced down to the first corner. And front of the pack had him clear of a squabbling Vettel (Ferrari) and Verstappen (Red Bull) and well clear of Perez (Force India or Force Canada) who shoved his team mate Ocon into the wall, resulting in a Safety Car session.
At the re-start, Hamilton just ran away from Vettel and Verstappen who kept in position until lap 14 when Vettel was the first to change tyres taking another soft option. That was not the best decision from the pit wall as both Hamilton and Verstappen took on more durable rubber, with the Red Bull driver passing Vettel to settle into second place.
From there on, the Singapore GP showed it should stick with promoting gigs as the Formula 1 race was boring. Fourth placed Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) for the race saying, “There was not a whole lot happening in the race.” Right on, Valtteri.
Unfortunately this could be predicted before the lights went out for the start. Street circuits, so beloved by new owners Liberty Media, do not make for good racing. Too many walls and not even enough straights to allow the use of the artificial DRS. The result of all that was endless high speed processions.
Now factor in the ridiculous design of the current F1 vehicles which rely so much upon the aerodynamics of the vehicle (I jyb at calling them “cars”) that they cannot get too close to the vehicle in front because this makes for instability in the slip stream. This is referred to as “dirty air” when in actual fact it is more correctly called “dirty vehicle aerodynamics”.
Three other reasons for the processional nature of the Grand Prix came courtesy of drivers Sergey Sirotkin (Williams), Romaine Grosjean (Haas) and Sergio Perez (Force Somewhere). Yes the same Perez who fenced his team mate Ocon. With Sirotkin at the head of the mid-field pack proved impossible to pass until the Mexican Perez used his vehicle as a ram, puncturing his own left rear tyre and collecting a drive through penalty, but the Russian continued to enter a jousting tournament with Grosjean. Cut and thrust, never mind the blue flags (11 of them) this pair of buffoons continued fighting with Hamilton the race leader trying to lap them and losing all his advantage. Grosjean picked up a time penalty for ignoring the blue flags. He was lucky it wasn’t a knuckle sandwich.
F1 has to sparkle up its offering to the fans. More on-track action and better venues are needed. Urgently.
Results
1 L Hamilton Mercedes
2 M Verstappen Red Bull
3 S Vettel Ferrari
4 V Bottas Mercedes
5 K Raikkonen Ferrari
6 D Ricciardo Red Bull
7 F Alonso McLaren
8 C Sainz Renault
9 C Leclerc
10 N Hulkenberg Renault
11 M Ericsson Sauber
12 S Vandoorne McLaren
13 P Gasly Toro Rosso
14 L Stroll Williams
15 R Grosjean Haas
16 S Perez Force India
17 B Hartley Toro Rosso
18 K Magnussen Haas
19 S Sirotkin (two laps down)
DNF
E Ocon Force India
The next GP is from Russia September 30 with the Thai telecast at 6.10 p.m.
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