Carlos Sainz won a well-worked Sinagpore Grand Prix to end Red Bull Racing’s 15-match winning streak, with the Ferrari driver beating Lando Norris to the flag as the leading pair held off a late-race Mercedes charge which left Lewis Hamilton with third place behind. a fall in the last lap for George Russell. Championship leader Max Verstappen was forced to settle for fifth place at the checkered flag.

At the start, Sainz led from pole, while his Ferrari teammate Leclerc, who started third on the grid, got off to a good start on soft tires to steal P2 from Russell entering turn 1. Behind the first three, Norris held on. fourth place approaching turn 1, but behind him Hamilton launched an overly ambitious attack from fifth and he clipped the corner, emerging third behind the Ferraris. The Briton quickly returned the places.

Further back, Verstappen, starting on hard tyres, quickly found himself 10th after AlhaTauri’s Liam Lawson dropped back to 12th.^th at the start then he overtook the Haas cars of Nico Hülkenberg and Kevin Magnussen, to move up to eighth place at the start of the 7th lap.

Sainz, meanwhile, controlled the race well. On lap 10, the Spaniard was ahead of his teammate Leclerc by 1.3 seconds, while Russell was 1.5 seconds further back in third place. Norris was in fourth place ahead of Hamilton and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, while seventh-placed Esteban Ocon came under pressure from Max who was just 0.8 seconds behind.

The race now became a tactical battle before the first pit stop, with the Ferrari drivers turning slowly to protect their tires and grouping the peloton behind. And with no real gaps, the benefit of an undercut has been reduced.

The deadlock was broken on lap 20 when Williams’ Logan Sargent lost control in Turn 8 and hit the barriers. He was able to restart but with his front wing trapped under his car, debris began to break loose and as the American returned to the pit lane, the safety car was deployed.

The first seven cars all immediately plunged into the pits. The hadr tire-shod Red Bulls stayed out and when Sainz took the lead, Verstappen was in P2, ahead of Russell, with Peerez in P4, ahead of Norris and Leclerc who had lost time and position during the pit stops when he was detained. in his dressing room because of the traffic.

The safety car left the track at the end of lap 22 and Sainz controlled the restart well to keep Verstappen at bay. The Red Bull drivers were only flirting with the top positions, however, and over the next few laps their old hard tires began to wear badly and they fell back to the bottom half of the top 10.

At half distance, Sainz led Russell by just 0.8 seconds with Norris 0.7 seconds further back. Hamilton was right on the tail of the McLaren driver, while Leclerc was two seconds behind the second Mercedes.

Pérez made his only pit stop at the end of lap 39, followed on the next lap by Verstappen. They joined Verstappen in P15 and Pérez two places further.

On lap 43, Alpine’s Esteban Ocon lost power and stopped near the pit exit, triggering a virtual safety car. Williams’ Alex Albon and Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu both headed to the pits, as did Russell and Hamilton, with Mercedes stacking their pit stops and betting on a higher pace than the cars ahead in the closing stages.

By lap 52, Sainz led Norris by 1.4 seconds, with Leclerc almost five seconds behind the McLaren. After their stop below the VSC, Russell, with a lap a second quicker than Leclerc, was just 1.2 seconds behind the Monegasque driver, with Hamilton close behind. And on lap 54 the Mercedes drivers pounced, both overtaking Leclerc who was helpless on much older hard tires.

With pace in abundance, the Mercedes pair began to close in on Norris and Sainz, but the leading Ferrari driver was aware of the threat and he smartly allowed Norris to stay within DRS range to increase the McLaren driver’s chances. against Russell.

Russell’s patience and precision ran out on the final lap. The Englishman closed in on Norris but when the McLaren driver hit the wall, the Mercedes driver followed his line too closely and hit the wall harder. He left the track and took an escape route in a shower of sparks, his race over.

And a few hundred meters later, after tending to his tires at each stint and driving a smart, tactically astute race, Sainz crossed the line to claim his second Grand Prix victory ahead of Norris and Hamilton.

Leclerc found himself fourth, but behind him, Red Bull staged a late race recovery that saw Verstappen move up from 15th.^th after his pit stop, fifth at the checkered flag ahead of Pierre Gasly of Alpine and Oscar Piastri of McLaren. Pérez launched a charge, moving up to P8, although the Mexican driver was summoned by the stewards after the race after appearing to elbow Albon off the track as he moved up the order. Lawson took two well-deserved points for AlphaTauri and the final point on offer went to Magnussen.

FIA Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix 2023 – Race
1Carlos Sainz Ferrari 62 1:46’37.418
2 Lando Norris McLaren 62 1:46’38.230 0.812
3 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 62 1:46’38.687 1.269
4 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 62 1:46’58.595 21.177
5 Max Verstappen Red Bull 62 1:46’58.859 21.441
6 Pierre Gasly Alpine 62 1:47’15.859 38.441
7 Oscar Piastri McLaren 62 1:47’18.897 41.479
8 Sergio Pérez Red Bull 62 1:47’31.952 54.534
9 Liam Lawson AlphaTauri 62 –
10 Kevin Magnussen Haas 62 –
11 Alexandre Albon Williams 62 –
12 Zhou Guanyu Alfa Romeo 62 –
13 Nico Hulkenberg Haas 62 –
14Logan Sargeant Williams 62 –
15 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin 62 –
16 George Russell Mercedes 61 – Accident
Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo 51 – Retirement
Esteban Ocon Alpine 42 – Retirement
Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri 0 – Accidental damage
Lance Stroll Aston Martin 0 – Retired