Why Sainz’s Singapore F1 success was not just about DRS genius

Carlos Sainz’s victory in the Singapore Grand Prix was a driving and tactical masterclass, using every tool in his repertoire to keep the defensive line intact behind him as Mercedes tried to break through. His intelligence in keeping Lando Norris within DRS range, even dropping back after the McLaren lost some ground fighting with George Russell, got all the praise it duly deserved from both within and outside his team.

But while Sainz’s triumph in breaking Red Bull’s stranglehold on F1 victories was all about how well he drove on Sunday, the roots of his success can really be traced back to the humbling Ferrari took at his home Spanish Grand Prix months ago.

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

Back then, as the reality of Red Bull’s dominance became clear and Ferrari all but knew its title hopes were over, it endured a pretty bruising Sunday as once again its super high tyre degradation led to it drifting down the pack. Having started on the front row, Sainz was powerless to do anything about poleman Max Verstappen and eventually came home fifth – having fallen behind both Mercedes and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez – on another day where Ferrari was left baffled by its car and tyre inconsistency.

But just as Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has long talked about the best days for his team being those when it stumbled, brushed itself off and came back stronger, so that Barcelona nightmare proved to deliver the foundations for Ferrari’s uptick in form that eventually delivered that win last weekend. With Ferrari running out of answers about how best to get on top of its race day woes, it had finally relented over that Spanish GP weekend (although exactly when remains subject to intrigue) in trying something that Sainz himself had been badgering the squad to do for weeks.

While the aero platform and simulation data pointed to the Ferrari delivering the best lap times when it ran low and stiff, Sainz had been urging it to shift stance. He felt that despite what the data was saying, the low/stiff approach was not actually the best way forward. It was making the car too unpredictable (which was derailing driver confidence) and, much worse, was hurting the tyres under braking – so making its degradation much worse.

Ferrari's recovery can be traced back to a woeful performance in the Spanish Grand Prix

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Sainz's argument was that if the car was lifted a bit and the suspension made a bit softer, then while there would be theoretical losses of downforce that cost lap time, there would be bigger gains from increased driver confidence and a car that looked after its rubber more. Sources have indicated – although Ferrari has remained tight-lipped about the specifics and Sainz will not confirm it – that at the post-race Pirelli test, the SF-23’s baseline set-up that day was based around this higher/softer approach.

Teams are not allowed to change set-ups over the course of a tyre test, but that does not stop them starting the day in any configuration they choose, as long as Pirelli is happy that it is useful for evaluating its products. Being low and stiff, or high and soft, is totally acceptable as long as it is locked in for the day.

With the high/soft tactic duly showing potential, the lessons that Ferrari took away from that week in Barcelona – the grand prix plus the tyre test – were invaluable and duly opened the door on a new approach that has slowly and steadily helped it make much-needed progress with its car.

“He did a mega job here in the race, but I think in the preparation of the weekend he did a real step forward” Fred Vasseur

Speaking earlier this year about that Spanish GP week, Ferrari’s Jock Clear said: “I think that was the weekend where we identified, 'okay, this is what's happening to the car', and we can rely on that being our weakness. From then on, both in the developments, although obviously they were already in the pipeline, but also in the way we set the car up, I think we've made progress.”

The small episode in changing the set-up approach says everything about Sainz’s intelligent and methodical approach to the job of improving the Ferrari this year. Rather than get disheartened by some of the difficulties the Prancing Horse has had to endure, he has knuckled down to make sure that no stone is left unturned.

In Singapore on Sunday night, team boss Fred Vasseur said that one of the factors that has helped Ferrari kick off the post-summer break period so well has been the fact that Sainz has hit the ground running in practice at each race – which means Ferrari is on top of things immediately.

“I think the biggest difference is that he is ready from lap one FP1,” said Vasseur. “It's the best way to prepare the quali. If you don't have so many sets of tyres, it means that if you are starting the weekend a step backwards, it is clear you have to overshoot the limit. So, the team, in terms of preparation, it's the best approach you can have.

“He did a mega job here in the race, but I think in the preparation of the weekend he did a real step forward.”

Vasseur has hailed Sainz's ability since the summer shutdown to start each weekend on the front foot as being key to Ferrari's progress

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

This ability to be on top of things from the off in practice is something that Sainz says he has particularly focused on in recent weeks. Having endured some frustrating weekends before the summer break where he felt things had not clicked as well as they should have, he took time out to sit down with his team and get on top of things.

“Before the summer break there was this already decent feeling with everything, but I just sat down with my engineers and we said: ‘okay, what can we do to start putting the whole weekend together,’” he said.

“Clearly, we had a lot of pace, we were doing some good things, but we were never putting the whole thing together. So [we said] let's see what we can do to improve that and start having consistent performances in the second half, because the potential is clearly there this year.”

Combine the Sainz-triggered shift in set-up approach, the determination to pull weekends together better, the valuable high-downforce experiments the team conducted in Zandvoort to learn more about its weaknesses (which were confirmed in Monza), and some DRS mastery, and it is not hard to see why things are finally clicking at Ferrari.

“Zandvoort was a very good weekend, Monza was almost perfect and here I feel like it was the perfect one,” said Sainz on Sunday night in Singapore. “Makes me very happy and proud that when you work, you analyse, and you also have the speed like I've had this weekend, it is it is always paying off.”

In F1, like in everyday life, hard work always pays off.

The hard work paid off for Sainz and Ferrari in Singapore, but can this continue?

Photo by: Ferrari