Singapore: Early Thoughts

There’s been some pretty significant news between Monza and Singapore, with Montezemolo (not too surprisingly) resigning/being resigned as big cheese of Ferrari. Joe Saward, F1 journalist who knows his beans, reckons it’s possible Mattiaci will move to take Montezemolo’s post, with Brawn becoming the new team principal of Ferrari. That would set the cat amongst the pigeons.

In addition, teams have now been banned from giving drivers advice over the radio. The concern is that the rule is so broad that practically any communication at all from pit to car could contravene it (full story here): http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/29161931).

Peter Prodromou, a top aerodynamicist formerly working under Adrian Newey, has now joined McLaren. It’s a good move for the team though I doubt his appointment will be the panacea they need to return to winning ways. Surprising just how much the team’s performance has declined since 2012, when they had the fastest car (albeit with poor reliability).

The Singapore circuit is tight, twisty and generally quite slow. Overtaking is perhaps harder than anywhere else (could argue the case between there and Monaco). This puts an especial premium on qualifying, so a cock-up or reliability failure could ruin a weekend. Whilst I expect Mercedes to maintain their dominance Red Bull will be relatively stronger here, and Williams probably a little weaker (being fastest in a straight line won’t help too much at the stop-start Singapore circuit).

Rosberg, of course, got pole and the win in Monaco, but it was very tight. Could go either way this weekend. With a potentially high attrition rate it could be an opportunity for one of the backmarker teams to score (as Bianchi did for Marussia back in Monaco).

No early bets for me this time.

Any comments, questions, tips and so forth are welcome in the comments section.


Morris Dancer

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