The Singapore secrets that helped Sainz end Verstappen's F1 winning streak

At last, we have our answer to the almost season-old question: will Red Bull win every race this season? If you’ve somehow missed the headline, here it is for the avoidance of doubt – it’s a definitive no.

Even the ardent Max Verstappenites in the Netherlands were beginning to struggle to muster the requisite enthusiasm for the Dutchman’s continued spell of dominance. Many had spent the Italian Grand Prix two weeks prior hoping for parallels to the last time a seemingly unbeatable Formula 1 team was felled in its efforts to win every race in a season. The 1988 edition of the race at Monza looked to be another occasion where McLaren’s all-conquering MP4/4 continued its streak, before Ayrton Senna’s victory was derailed by a clash with Williams substitute Jean-Louis Schlesser.

Thirty-five years on, glimmers of a Ferrari resurgence at home – where Carlos Sainz battled valiantly against Verstappen – gave way to the looming sense of inevitability when the reigning champion’s pass for the lead was only a matter of time. There was no Schlesser-esque figure that day, and Verstappen claimed the outright record for consecutive wins with 10 in a row. But that’s where the streak ends, as Sainz repaid the favour from Monza to vanquish the field in Singapore’s tense and tactical encounter.

PLUS: Why Sainz was able to make F1's 2023 Italian GP as good as it was

It was, admittedly, a slow burner at Marina Bay. Concerns over tyre degradation and the desire to make a one-stop strategy work thrust the field into lockstep, with few willing to risk sinking a single iota of tyre life into a doomed effort to pass. That suited Sainz just fine, of course, as Ferrari decided to play the management game very early. The Scuderia knew it could not necessarily compete on pure race pace as Mercedes and McLaren had shown well in the FP2 race simulations, but getting track position would enable it to slow the tempo of the race.

But Mercedes had a trump card up its sleeve. Throughout the practice sessions, the Brackley squad had been conspicuously sparing with its allocation of medium tyres, and had saved an extra set to offer more strategic latitude during the race. This gave George Russell cause to be particularly bullish post-qualifying, feeling that Mercedes had the race-pace high ground and a tactical advantage in the preamble to Sunday. One got the feeling that he rather underestimated Sainz’s own penchant for calling his own shots, even if his premonitions over that extra set ultimately contributed to the race’s thrilling conclusion.

Both Red Bulls were dumped out of Q2 in qualifying, as the team had its first major off weekend of the season

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

As early as Friday practice, it became apparent that Red Bull had not perhaps brought its best to the city-state on the tip of the Malay Peninsula. Any difficult starts to a weekend are usually rectified in the simulator, as the at-base personnel provide the last wall of defence against a difficult weekend. But Saturday’s efforts were little better.

Tweaks between FP3 and qualifying made the car worse, according to Verstappen, and the usually benign-handling RB19 could not be coaxed into the corner without the drivers having to wrestle the steering wheel. The elimination of both drivers in the second part of qualifying effectively made it open season for the chasing pack.

With pole, Ferrari went all out for victory. This was a different Ferrari to the one seen in recent years, where conservatism and inertia often squandered victories as more dynamic strategies caught out the team. Ferrari didn’t have the full front-row lock-out to play with as Russell had pruned Charles Leclerc off the front row, but the Monegasque’s call to start on the soft tyre – relative to the other frontrunners’ medium tyres – gave him extra impetus off the line to nudge ahead of Russell.

“I changed my mind very last minute [and chose softs] just to make sure that I was in front of George in the first stint,” Leclerc recalled of that decision. “It was clear that it was beneficial for Carlos, he was making the gap, but also for me because then that meant I could stop before Carlos and try and keep that second place.”

“Going onto a hard tyre on lap 20 wasn't my preference, especially because I had managed very well the medium and I felt like we could have gone a lot longer. But it was the right call” Carlos Sainz

Lewis Hamilton had also broken clear of Russell at the start, but hardly by the most ethical of means; the older Briton made little effort to make the first corner and took to the run-off, where he overtook Russell and Lando Norris into Turn 3 (only Russell, really; the Norris pass looked legitimate – ed) and attempted to pass it off as having been pushed off. It didn’t wash, and Hamilton had to turn in his ill-gotten gains when the FIA put the first-corner events under the microscope.

Subsequent action at the front was not particularly forthcoming after the first lap, as tyre saving waylaid early efforts for the drivers at the front to make progress. Sainz and Leclerc controlled the pace, and Leclerc stayed in DRS range to force Russell into conducting his own tyre saving rather than expending energy to attack. It foreshadowed the end of the race in that regard, but the front runners were simply attempting to keep their hands close to their chest. Thus began the gamesmanship, as the race resembled a powder keg awaiting the touch of a single spark.

Ferrari’s plan was to build a gap between Sainz and Leclerc to buy the leader time and, with Leclerc expecting to pit first, Sainz could be protected by his margin with fewer worries that he’d be gazumped by the chasing Russell in the pitstop phase.

Leclerc, with his softs, got the jump on Russell to take second into the first corner to set-up Ferrari's initial plan to victory

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Leclerc was told on the 10th lap that he’d need to back off to give his team-mate a three-second advantage, a difficult task given Russell was circulating at the same pace as the two out in front. Russell was made aware of Ferrari’s plan, and said that “they’ll sacrifice Leclerc”, which arguably summoned a more grandiose and gorier mental image than intended.

With a bit of to-ing and fro-ing with his lap times, Leclerc had built most of the gap and sat 2.3s behind his team-mate, but was hit with the news that he needed more: 5s would be a much safer target to protect the lead. As Ferrari continued to exert its control over the race, Russell got on the radio to his team and asked, “What our best shot of winning this race is; what do I need to do?”.

He’d get a little help, as Logan Sargeant lazily dumped his car into the wall at Turn 8 and nibbled off his front wing. The American managed to back his Williams out of the wall, front wing precariously wedged under the car, and limped back to the pits – but the ensuing shower of carbon fibre shrapnel warranted a safety car to clean up the track.

That was the spark. Everybody hurried to the pitlane to ditch their tyres, save for those on the alternative strategy: the Red Bulls among them. The margin that Sainz had been granted crucially decided the pitstop phase in his favour, keeping him ahead of the hard-shod Verstappen once the safety car arrived, but the hurried trips to the pitlane were far less kind to Leclerc.

His own sacrifice to give Sainz a buffer, which went beyond 3s by the time Sargeant littered the Marina Bay circuit with his own mangled bodywork, put him far too close to the Russell-Norris-Hamilton pack behind. Leclerc’s double-stack with Sainz was achievable given their gap, but Hamilton’s need to drive across the Ferrari’s bow to queue up for his own service in the pitbox ahead cost Leclerc positions to both Russell and Norris – his efforts to help Sainz had not been rewarded by Lady Luck in the slightest.

Although Sainz had enough in hand to ensure the lead never slipped from his grasp, he reckoned the safety car had come a little bit too soon. “Going onto a hard tyre on lap 20 wasn't my preference, especially because I had managed very well the medium and I felt like we could have gone a lot longer,” he mused after the race. “But it was the right call.”

Sainz’s engineer Riccardo Adami then gave his charge a few directors’ notes for the restart as the field circulated behind the Aston Martin safety car. Firstly, he’d need to ensure Verstappen didn’t make an outrageous play for the lead, which would be difficult on his aged hard tyres. Next, once the restart was done with, Sainz was told to ensure that the chasing pack stayed together as much as he could manage. There would be no use of Verstappen as a meat shield to absorb the net-second Russell’s advances while Sainz scampered off into the distance; the field had to be compressed.

After nailing the restart, Sainz couldn't bolt into the distance with Verstappen as his buffer as he needed to save tyre life

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

It had become clear that Mercedes would be the main challenger in the race, given events over the first 20 laps. Solid race pace from Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso demonstrated on Friday never really materialised, and Norris’s McLaren was much of a muchness with the Ferraris. If Mercedes could be kept on the same strategy, Sainz could micromanage the race pace and hope that the turbulent air gave Russell’s W14 more trouble with tyre degradation.

If Sainz opened the taps and sailed off, he’d only hurt his own hard tyres and risk spacing the field out, which Mercedes could then exploit to employ its not-so-secret weapon. The team’s openness of having retained that extra set of medium tyres meant that this was a strategic option that Ferrari had prepared for; with no field spread, there’d be no real opportunity for Mercedes to pit without sacrificing huge amounts of track position.

Once the Red Bulls had been cleared out of the way by the frontrunners, the strategic stand-off resumed in earnest. Sainz was told to keep about a second’s margin: enough to keep Russell out of DRS, but not as much as to allow gaps to form in the order. Russell astutely cottoned on to the idea that Sainz was trying to back the field up, and the Spaniard’s resulting tyre management left him feeling surprisingly comfortable and “under control” despite the mounting pressure from Russell behind.

Russell and Hamilton were hauled in at the end of lap 44 of 62 and handed those fresh medium tyres to make a race of it. They’d shed a few positions and seconds in the process which put Russell just over 17s behind Sainz on the lap 45 restart

It could very well have continued like that until the end, but fate had one more twist to bestow upon the race’s thread of destiny. Esteban Ocon lost drive in his Alpine and came to rest just before Turn 3, prompting race control to stick the virtual safety car lights on as the marshals tucked the stranded A523 behind the nearest break in the fence.

This gave Mercedes the chance to play its ace. Russell and Hamilton were hauled in at the end of lap 44 of 62 and handed those fresh medium tyres to make a race of it. They’d shed a few positions and seconds in the process, albeit at a knock-down rate thanks to the VSC’s presence, which put Russell just over 17s behind Sainz on the lap 45 restart.

That worked out to about a second a lap, which looked more than achievable when they’d logged their times for the 46th lap: Sainz’s 1m37.913s was made to look insignificant by Russell’s 1m36.273s. The new tyre bounce notwithstanding, the race looked to have swung in Russell’s favour.

The Mercedes duo had work to do, though. Leclerc was back in front of them and willing to put up a fight to help Ferrari bag its first win of the season, with Norris slightly further up the road in Sainz’s wheel tracks.

With fresh mediums, Russell and Hamilton gave chase to the front three

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

“At the beginning, I was not so nervous because I felt like I had a lot of pace in hand to push in the last 12-15 laps,” Sainz reckoned. “But immediately I felt like as soon as I started pushing, my tyre degradation started to kick In. Lando and I were sliding a lot. Then it all surprised me quite a lot how quickly the Mercs managed to pass Charles and close the gap on Lando and me. And at that point, I thought, ‘OK, it's not going to be easy’.”

Leclerc was made a significantly easier prospect to pass as his Ferrari began to overheat, and concluded that “after the two Mercedes passed me there was not much to gain anymore by
pushing”. Russell nipped past on lap 53, with Hamilton following suit on the next tour, to give them the opportunity to close on Norris.

As the black-and-teal cars loomed larger in Norris’s mirrors, Sainz took what he considered a risk to ensure neither he nor his former team-mate would get passed: he decided to back it up and give Norris the DRS.

“This is the sort of strategy that you always keep in the back of your head in tracks like Singapore, that might come useful at some point,” Sainz revealed after the race. “Obviously it's easy to think about it, it's easy to have it in mind. But it's a lot more difficult to execute because it does put you under some extra pressure and it comes with its risks.

“It's all about having that commitment to do it and to put yourself under that extra risk. But I felt like that was my only real chance of winning the race…”

With Norris taken under his wing, Sainz ensured that Russell’s attempts to pass the McLaren would be fewer and further between. Norris, for his part, was focused on protecting second and Sainz kept enough of a gap to ensure there was no possibility of being backstabbed at the final moment. When Russell applied DRS, Sainz ensured that Norris would have it too.

It got slightly hairy on lap 59 when Russell briefly broke out of the train to attack Norris. The King’s Lynn native got a better run out of Turn 13 and put the Bristol-born racer ahead under heavy pressure along the Jubilee Bridge, but Norris got his lines right to ensure Russell couldn’t find a way by. With no DRS zone on the revised back stretch, Norris could be more leisurely with placing his car into Turns 16 and 17 to ward off a move once more.

By giving Norris DRS, Sainz was able to help the McLaren driver defend from Russell while also protecting his lead

Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

Sainz put his neck on the line again; Norris had dropped to 1.5s behind but was still needed in play, and thus the leader backed off again to keep his follower topped up with DRS functionality. After that assault, Russell perhaps had to be more circumspect.

“The Merc strategy was way, way faster,” said Norris. “If we weren't in the way, they would have 10 seconds ahead of us quite easily, but there's always the task of overtaking, which in Singapore is one of the hardest tasks. Especially at the end and with a couple of those attacks from George, I think it just put his tyres a little bit over the edge and he didn't attack me as much.”

It came down to a knife edge on the final lap. With each passing corner, Sainz’s odds of victory were growing – before Russell’s own error of judgement cast it into near-certainty.

At Turn 10, Norris brushed the outside wall before taking the corner, which he admitted caused him to panic when it knocked the steering off-centre. But that was nothing compared to Russell, who seemed to follow Norris’s line and hit the outside wall with more force. This caused the Mercedes to go straight on, putting Russell into the wall to undo his afternoon’s efforts at the final hurdle and handing third to Hamilton, who had closed in the final stint.

“Sometimes you need to trust your instinct, trust your feeling. I've been trusting that these last two weekends – and it's working well” Carlos Sainz

“It was such a nothing of a mistake,” Russell lamented. “If I spun off and had a lock up it would have been very different, but I clipped the wall on the last lap. It’s such a pathetic mistake.”

Sainz could breathe and simply had to navigate the final corners to secure victory in a race that began with careful manoeuvring of chess pieces and ended in fireworks, sweat, and tears. In one of the most mentally demanding races on the F1 calendar, where the impenetrable humidity and dazzling lights can be overwhelming, Sainz had the clarity of thought to execute his own tactical masterclass after reading the race behind him.

“[The plan] worked and sometimes you need to trust your instinct, trust your feeling,” he said. “I've been trusting that these last two weekends – and it's working well.”

As for the unpredictable thriller that the race became, it just needed Red Bull to colossally drop the ball to create F1’s best spectacle of the year. Aston Martin and Mercedes had got close to breaking the hegemony, but Ferrari’s current swing in form was enough to make the magic happen at Marina Bay.

Sainz celebrates after an explosive finish to the Singapore GP

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images