Qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix has resulted in a close battle for pole position involving three different teams for nearly two decades.
Max Verstappen realized that the Red Bull team would be too low on fuel as he backed out on the last flying lap, securing Charles Leclerc’s ninth pole position for the season – and ensuring that no one will finish the year ahead of them. The Ferrari driver.
Leclerc beat Red Bull’s Sergio Perez by 0.022 seconds and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton by 0.054 seconds. That’s the smallest gap that spanned three different teams at the front of the grid for nearly 20 years.
You have to go all the way back to the 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix to find a top three with a trio of different teams. Rubens Barrichello – also in a Ferrari – took 0.011s off David Coulthard (McLaren) and 0.044s off Marc Webber (Jaguar, who became Red Bull two years later) for that race.
Leclerc’s pole position was the 18th in his career, which is the same as the driver he replaced at Ferrari three years ago – Kimi Raikkonen. Mario Andretti and René Arnoux recorded 18 pole positions during their careers.
However, Leclerc lost the lead to Perez early on – just as happened when the pair lined up in the same order in Azerbaijan. Leclerc also repeated his result at the last Singapore GP, taking pole position and finishing second.
Thus, Perez took the fourth victory of his Formula 1 career, bringing him level with Dan Gurney, Bruce McLaren and Eddie Irvine. Following his victory at the Monaco Grand Prix earlier this year, Perez has now scored more than one win in a season for the first time. Incidentally, both were street races and he faced scrutiny after the race.
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It was the first time in Perez’s career that he led off every run. This meant team-mate Max Verstappen did not lead any laps, something that hasn’t happened since Perez’s Monaco win. Verstappen’s streak of nine consecutive races is the longest of his career. Another personal best run of five consecutive victories has also come to an end.
Red Bull took their fourth win in Singapore, which means they are now tied with Mercedes for the most successful team at the track.
The driver who set the fastest lap for the first time this year did not collect the bonus points because they did not finish in the top 10. George Russell took the second fastest lap of his career, the other coming on his own. In the year
Behind Perez, Ferrari got both cars on the podium for the first time since the Miami Grand Prix. The McLaren pair went on to take 22 points, the team’s highest score in a single race this year. They scored the same amount at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, but the seven points came from the sprint race.
Daniel Ricciardo scored his best result of the season in fifth place. This helped McLaren win the Alpine Championship for the fourth time.
Before Singapore, all five of Lance Stroll’s points came from 10th place. He thus doubled the team’s best result of the season in sixth place, beating Sebastian Vettel in Azerbaijan.
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Future Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso made his record 350th start in the World Championship but had a disappointing end to the race as he was one of the 6 retirees.
This was the 13th edition of the Singapore GP, which had been off the calendar for the past two seasons due to the Covid-19 pandemic. He was fourth, unable to go the distance, reaching the two-hour time limit as wet conditions made for a slow start early on. At this time, 59 of the planned 61 rounds have been completed. The other shorter races were in 2012, ’14 and ’17. And, like every previous Singapore GP in F1, it included at least one safety car or VSC interruption.
However, Zhou Guanyu might reconsider inviting his family to the tournament in the future. They came to watch as they had done at Silverstone, only to see another driver crash out of the race again. At least he didn’t flip to the roller coaster this time.
Have you seen any other interesting statistics and facts from the Singapore Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.
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2022 Singapore Grand Prix
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