Singapore GP: pole for Norris ahead of Verstappen. A complete disaster for Ferrari...

Looking at the results of yesterday at the end of FP2, this Singapore Grand Prix qualifying can be considered a surprise to all intents and purposes: sure, in pole position there is still Lando Norris, but behind him the situation has been turned upside down! Let's try to understand why, not before having a look at today's final classification...

McLaren confirmed as the fastest, but Verstappen overturns the inertia of the weekend

Throughout Saturday, starting with FP3, each session was dominated by one of the two MCL38s: a clear sign of McLaren's competitiveness on the Marina Bay track, where the most useful technical characteristics for a single-seater are peak downforce and traction. Two characteristics that the Papaya team do not lack, but on the other hand do not include aerodynamic efficiency (thanks to which Piastri had managed to impose himself on Leclerc at the last Azerbaijan Grand Prix).

Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Nevertheless, the telemetry comparison between Lando Norris and Max Verstappen (today in P2 at just +0.203 s) shows that in each of the few straights that characterise the track, the Englishman was able to gain valuable time on the World Champion. This evidence can be explained by looking at how much more load the rear wing of the Red Bull RB20 had compared to the McLaren MCL38, a factor that jumps out at you when you look - in the next photo compared to the previous one - at the increased chord of the former compared to the latter.

OK, but why can McLaren afford a smaller rear wing than Red Bull? The answer is exactly what we would have given until a few months ago, but in reverse: at the moment the RB20 is a car with a poor aerodynamic balance, probably due to the latest evolutions to the floor introduced in recent Grands Prix... For this reason, it's impossible for the Milton Keynes team's engineers to try to increase downforce by reducing the ride heights, as this would imply a much more unpredictable behaviour of the car itself!

Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

At this point, all that's left to do is to "load" the wings a bit more, a choice that goes much more unpunished - in terms of laptime - on tracks like Monaco or Singapore than on other layouts where aerodynamic efficiency is key, as at Spa or Baku. This also explains Verstappen's second place, but - in response - Max himself was back on his level today against Perez (P13, eliminated in Q2) who we had not seen at the Monza and Baku weekends... For the Dutchman it was the best - but also the only possible - way to maximise the weekend haul and thus postpone the moment when the World Championship battle with Norris will take on more aggressive contours (which, knowing Max, will almost certainly happen...).

The night in Singapore helps Mercedes' recover, putting them even ahead of Piastri!

In third and fourth position we have an all Mercedes second row, with Lewis Hamilton ahead of George Russell. In the aftermath of the English-German team's result, the havoc at the start of Q3 with Carlos Sainz's crash had a huge importance: in that moment, with the red flag and the consequent loss of time in the pits, the night in Singapore led to a drop in ambient and track temperatures, a condition in which the W15s have been excelling since the start of the year.

Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

This helped Hamilton and Russell taking also Oscar Piastri's position, with the latter perhaps the most disappointing of the day along with the two Ferraris (which we return to in the next section). In fact, considering the tools at the Australian's disposal, what is surprising - more than fifth position - is the 0.428s gap to his team-mate Norris on pole: in addition to this, Oscar was actually the only one together with Hulkenberg to benefit from two attempts in Q3, while for the other eight drivers who had access to the last qualifying manche, the first attempt had been rendered futile by the red flag.

Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images

In sixth position we find the one that in my opinion was the best driver of the day, Nico Hulkenberg in his Haas. Needless to say, P6 is not a position the Haas VF-24 should be in if you merely think about the competitiveness of the car, but the German - once again - manages to pull a rabbit out of his hat. On every tricky occasion Nico always knows where to be and what to do, he makes few mistakes (certainly fewer than Magnussen) and most of the times when the final position is disappointing, the reasons have to do with procedural errors made by his team...

Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images

With the sixth position just mentioned, Hulkenberg manages to put behind him a handful of drivers who are certainly not second-rate, such as Alonso (in P7 at +0.689s), Tsunoda (in P8 at +0.829s), Leclerc and Sainz (both with no time). Taking for granted a recovery by the two Ferraris, having Alonso and Tsunoda behind them at the start could mean for Haas to plan a man-to-man race for them, a strategy that has often worked in Singapore over the years!

A disaster for Ferrari: Sainz in the wall and Leclerc (with no time) are in fifth row...

The Saturday experienced by the two Ferrari drivers is probably the worst, along with that of the weekend in Montreal: here too, just as in Canada, the team from Maranello arrived as the favourite one and with a great desire to follow up on the predictions that everyone was making... But, whereas in Canada the optimism was due to the recent victory in Monaco, here in Singapore the reasons to be confident were linked to a technical aspect, namely the layout of the track.

Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

The characteristics of Marina Bay, in fact, seem to be perfectly suited to the "DNA" that the Ferrari single-seaters retain even years later and under different technical regulations: it's no coincidence that last year this stage was the only one to give Formula 1 fans a non-Red Bull triumph, with Sainz's splendid victory ahead of Norris and Hamilton. For this reason, together with the very positive feedback from Friday's free practice, this qualifying session was a real disheartening moment for the team...

Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images

Already in Q1 and Q2 it was clear that for Leclerc (sharper than Sainz all weekend so far) getting pole position was going to be a tough. But it was in Q3 that a series of negative events turned Saturday from a missed opportunity into a real nightmare: Carlos Sainz's crash eight minutes from the chequered flag had - it has to be said - a very unfortunate dynamic, all the more so given that the Spanish driver was on the last corner of his outlap. A sudden loss of grip at the rear triggered a "pendulum effect" that was impossible to recover from, and for the SF-24 the run ended in the barrier.

Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images

The only surviving Ferrari, that of Leclerc, at that point in time found itself with only one attempt available to its driver. It was a pity that on that same one lap Charles infringed the track limits in Turn 2, seeing his laptime cancelled (in any case, that result wouldn't have allowed him to be placed higher than an anonymous sixth place...). Instead, with no time under his belt, the Monegasque will be forced to start the race in ninth position, with the difficulty of overtaking in Singapore making any chance of a comeback very unlikely...

The two Williams miss Q3 by a whisker, but progress can be seen. And what a performance by Colapinto!

On the fringes of Q3, in 11th and 12th place, are the two Williams driven by Albon and Colapinto, with the rookie from Argentine once again extremely close (just +0.007s) to his teammate, who is far more experienced and in his third season with the Grove-based team.

Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Today's qualifying is for Williams a further step in the growth process that has been triggered after the summer break, after a first half of the Championship that had proved disappointing even within the team, as well as outside the team: the steps forward made by the engineers led by Team Principal James Vowles and Technical Director Pat Fry consist of a new floor, revised sidepods and a lighter roll hoop (a change rarely seen in-season): all these elements seem to have come together in the best possible way, so much so that in different conditions (Zandvoort, Monza, Baku) the FW46 is more and more at ease in the midfield, and has abandoned the less noble positions to which it was relegated in the first races of 2024.

Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images

The positions behind the two Williams see - in addition to Magnussen (in P14), Ricciardo (in P16) and Stroll (in P17) - the two teams that have been struggling the most for many races, namely Alpine and Kick Sauber, once again at the tail end of the grid.

Track position and tactics are crucial in view of the race. Is there a "train race" risk?

To close our analysis, all that remains for us to do is to make a prediction on what will be the key themes in view of the race: out of all of them, I would point to the track position as the element that can determine the final classification, as in Singapore it's often the race leader who dictates the pace: the 2013, 2018, 2019 and 2023 editions (just to mention the last decade ones) were decided just like that, with wait-and-see tactics from - respectively - Vettel, Hamilton, Leclerc (the only one of the four not to win that race) and Sainz.

Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images

The reason why waiting at Marina Bay pays off is that by keeping a slow pace you can dramatically increase your first stint's length, keeping a precious reserve of performance available to protect yourself from an undercut attempt by those following; if we then think that this behaviour often leads to real "trains" of drivers lining up one after the other (which we hope will not happen tomorrow), it's easy to understand how this lends itself to the risk of ending up in traffic in the event of an early pitstop!

All this aside, I believe that tomorrow Norris will have the pace to bring home a race win that is crucial to boost his World Title ambitions. But for Verstappen, the best chance to prevent him from doing so will be on lap one...

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