Will random factors reign in F1 Singapore GP outcome?

Strategy for the Singapore Grand Prix has always been built around maintaining track position, given the difficulty of overtaking, but it also has to take into account the high possibility of a safety car deployment. Last year’s race was an outlier – maybe – in that for the first time ever at the Marina Bay circuit, Bernd Maylander was not called upon.

The pitlane speed limit has been increased from 60km/h to 80km/h, which is expected to cut the pitstop time loss by up to eight seconds – which at any other circuit would be significant, since the time loss here used to be in the order of 29 seconds. However, the experience of Zandvoort, where the pitlane speed limit was also raised, suggests not much will change.

But Pirelli is still holding out some hope that a two-stop race could be an option, though Friday’s disrupted practice meant little meaningful long-run data was logged in the more representative FP2 session.

“We believe that medium-hard is the quickest strategy, even if with the new speed limit in the pitlane the one-stop and two-stop are very close,” said Pirelli motorsport manager in his regular Saturday post-qualifying briefing.

“We cannot exclude the usage of the soft because the level of grip is higher than the medium – and maybe someone wants to try starting on the soft to get the advantage of the additional grip to have a better track position at the beginning of the race.

“It [the soft] is a raceable tyre, I mean it’s a little bit difficult to make a proper assessment because yesterday in FP1 and today in FP3 we had a lot of track evolution that is obviously masking a little bit the pure performance. But in general the feedback was the level of grip was higher, obviously you have to manage the degradation that is coming mainly from the rear overheating.

“And so, medium-hard is probably the quickest on paper, hard-medium for people starting from the back, but also soft-hard is an option or a two-stop. Consider that everyone is with only one set of medium one set of hard, so if there is any reason they have to move on a two-stop strategy, they have to use the soft – basically because they don’t have additional sets of medium or hard available.”

What about safety cars?

Although safety car periods can be relatively random in timing in Singapore, statistically they tend to cluster around the first lap and the middle of the 62-lap race – essentially the pitstop window in the latter case. This is a natural consequence of drivers being desperate to secure track position on the opening lap in the first instance, then pushing harder and therefore taking more risks as their pitstops approach – or pushing too hard on cold tyres afterwards.

There is a smaller-order statistical clustering of safety cars towards the end of the race caused by fatigued drivers making mistakes, although one of the hotspots for these – where the track essayed a slightly pointless right-left-left-right around a grandstand in the Esplanade section – has been deleted owing to redevelopment in the area. The cars themselves are marginal on brakes and cooling, so more prone to failure.

Random events can also happen, though escaped lizards are usually dealt with under local yellows. Only once has an inebriated Brit taking a short cut home from the pub caused as safety car.

Will we really see the soft tyres?

Pirelli had originally hoped to bring compounds a step softer here and deploy the new C6, but decided against it, so the compounds are the same as last year. Well, not quite – Pirelli improved their resistance to thermal degradation in the off-season in response to driver feedback.

So the soft – which, treated correctly, could manage 20 laps – is a stronger candidate than it used to be.

Last year, those drivers who used the soft did not prosper. Lewis Hamilton started on a used set from third on the grid, switched to hards on lap 17, and ended up sixth, two places behind team-mate George Russell, who had started one place behind him.

Yuki Tsunoda went to softs after 33 laps on mediums, finishing outside the top 10 after starting eighth. The only other drivers to involve softs in their strategies were those at the back of the grid praying for a safety car intervention, which never came.

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Colin McMaster / LAT Images via Getty Images

Will anyone ape Max Verstappen’s Baku gambit and start on the hard? That will require stout self-confidence, because the hard will give a slower getaway and drivers tend to take more risks in Turns 1-2 at Singapore because there isn’t a wall waiting for them on the outside.

“If someone is struggling a little bit with the [tyre] warm-up, starting on the hard probably creates an additional difficulty at the start of the race,” said Isola.

“Everyone wants to keep the track position here, so it is possible for people that are in the back of the grid – I believe it’s not an option for the top drivers. But it’s also true that on a circuit where the safety car probability is quite high and overtaking is difficult, you want to have a flexibility.

“But probably you keep flexibility also on the medium – because if you start on the hard and you have only one set of hard and you have an early safety car, clearly you can keep the hard.

“But if you are in a moment of the race where the stint is not long enough and you change, you go to the medium, and maybe then you have a very long stint on the medium – and that could be a disadvantage because you have thermal degradation. So starting on the medium is probably the best choice also in case of a safety car.”

Much of this assumes that Maylander will be called upon to pace the field around. What will be interesting to observe in this and the coming years is whether the 2024 race is indeed an outlier, or if the change to the track in the final sector genuinely has eliminated an accident blackspot.

In which case, the Singapore Grand Prix promoters will wish the government hadn’t caved in to its seemingly insatiable desire to pour concrete.

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– The Autosport.com Team