The F1x

• The In Lap

  • Lando finally had a good start

  • Colapinto impresses with dive-bombs

  • Danny Ric gets farewell fastest lap and driver of day?

  • 9 races without a safety car

• Overheard in the Paddock

  • Verstappen to do “work of public interest”

  • McLaren told to modify rear wing

  • Daniel Ricciardo confusing weekend

  • Toto and Horner stirring the sh*t

• A Quick Look Ahead

  • 4 week break till Austin 🇺🇸

The In Lap 🇸🇬

It was a bit of a classic Singapore GP and not the most exciting race in terms of on track action, but there was still lots to talk about off track.

Well, Lando finally got off to a good start and didn’t lose any positions on the opening lap. Would you look at the result this McLaren can achieve by not being put behind at the start? By the end of the race, Norris was 21 seconds clear of Verstappen. Considering Max finished P2, the damage in the championship battle was minimized despite the incredible difference in pace.

On the opening lap, Franco Colapinto came diving through and gained four spots at the first corner. It caught the attention of a few drivers, and even his teammate, Alex Albon, came over the radio with a message implying it was a dangerous maneuver.

In the moment the radio message Albon shot back to his garage - "Franco just divebombed. What's he doing?" . But following the race he did backtrack on the message.

Albon can no longer hide behind underperforming teammates and we think this could be a very important end of season push for Albon to maintain his reputation as a driver who is capable of squeezing every bit of pace from an under performing car. Is this the first sign of a bit of pressure getting to Albon?

In the final laps of the race Daniel Ricciardo pitted and delivered on getting the fastest lap of the race, taking it away from Lando Norris. This one decision makes it so Max can now finish P2 behind Norris in every remaining race and still win the championship.

Of course this calls into question the fairness of the Red Bull sister team being able to do this, but a drivers championship is not decided in one race and McLaren have left countless points on the table this year…

It has now been 9 races without a safety car, the last being in Montreal this year. Up until this point Singapore has had a safety car in every race so we were convinced we would be getting one.

Overheard in the Paddock

Verstappen was punished by the FIA for swearing during his Thursday press conference, which was meant to serve “the work of public interest.” You can imagine how well that went over with Max for the rest of the weekend. Following qualifying, Verstappen gave very short answers to reporters and then held his own mini press conference outside of the main area, where he actually answered questions.

To be fair to Max, most drivers and F1 personnel when asked about this punishment shared the sentiment it was silly and not something the FIA should be choosing to focus on.

Verstappen doubled down post race saying this type of distraction thing makes him consider leaving F1 sooner than later as he doesn’t need to put up with this at this point in his career.

Prior to the race weekend commencing McLaren were told they had to modify their rear wing following successful Red Bull complaint. The FIA stated that bending of the flaps on the straights will not be allowed even if the wing passes the static deflection tests.

It was an all around weird weekend for Danny Ric. It is being heavily speculated this was his last race weekend for VCARB, but we are still awaiting any official confirmation from Red Bull.

There are reports that Helmut Marko wants Liam Lawson in the seat now, while Horner wants to keep Daniel. It has also been speculated that Lawson has a clause in his contract stating that if he doesn’t get five race starts this year, or if he doesn’t have a full-time seat by the end of September, he becomes a free agent.

Regardless of the situation, this weekend could have been handled much better from a PR perspective. Red Bull bosses were quiet on the topic, leaving Daniel to answer a lot of awkward questions and dance around the reports. Liam Lawson was also in Daniel's garage all weekend on the TV broadcast, which seemed to add additional stress to Ricciardo and the situation.

It was sad to see the usually happy and smiling Ricciardo tearing up during the post-race media pen, and it will be heartbreaking when the confirmation comes that he will not be returning for Austin in a month's time.

VCARB team boss Laurent Mekies had this to say regarding the choice to bring in Daniel for the late race pit stop - “Given this may have been Daniel’s last race, we wanted to give him the chance to savour it and go out with the fastest lap"

There was some s**t stirring going on this weekend according to Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff.

Christian Horner stated the day before that the Red Bull team is open to going outside of their “pool” of RB drivers when looking for the next people to bring into the team. He specifically mentioned Russell in relation to his contract being up at the end of 2026 and that it would make sense for Red Bull to consider him.

A Quick Look Ahead

We have a month long break which is a real buzzkill for the championship fight. The next time out we are going to be in the USA and the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. 🇺🇸

52 points separates Lando from Verstappen in the drivers championship and we only have 6 races to go!