Formula 1 | Red night in Singapore: Ferrari wins after a year and two months of fasting

Carlos Sainz , Scuderia Ferrari they won the Singapore Grand Prix 2023. The Spaniard has dominated the weekend since Friday, but the race was a very tense marathon, a 62-lap long chess match which he managed perfectly, once again showing off his skills, as well as speed, great tactical intelligence. For Sainz it is the second victory in formula 1, while for the Scuderia it is the number 243, the first after a year, two months and ten days, when Leclerc triumphed a Zeltweg in 2022 with the F1-75. The Monegasque, fourth at the finish line yesterday, was penalized by traffic in the pit lane during his only stop, and this caused him to lose the second position he had achieved with a lightning-fast start. With this result, the first success of Frederic Vasseur at the helm of the team, the Scuderia consolidated third place in the constructors, and recovered 21 points in the Mercedes in the fight for second, now 24 lengths away.

The race. At the start, on medium tyres, Sainz started perfectly from pole, followed like a shadow by his teammate, the only one at the start on the soft compound and which allowed him to immediately jump ahead of George Russell. From then on the Spaniard kept a pace that was not particularly fast, so as to keep the group together and prevent his rivals from evaluating the two-stop strategy. On lap 20, Logan Sargeant went off the track and triggered a Safety Car, which led both drivers to take advantage of the neutralization to make the only scheduled tire change. Both were fitted with hard tyres, but Leclerc had to delay the restart for a few seconds because Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes stopped in front of him at that very moment. This delay in the pits caused him to lose position to Russell and Norris. At the restart, Charles tried to overtake the McLaren driver, but opened his flank to Hamilton's attack. On lap 44 a Virtual Safety Car allowed the Mercedes to enter the pits for a second stop in which they put on new medium tires for a final part of the race that was all about attacking.

Thrilling ending. Russell and Hamilton therefore began to recover at a great pace, reaching and overtaking Leclerc and continuing until they also caught the duo of Sainz and Norris with five laps to go. At that point the Spaniard used all his tactical intelligence, letting Lando get closer until he entered the DRS area, protecting him from Russell's attacks until the checkered flag. George then crashed out on the last lap, leaving third place to Hamilton and allowing Leclerc to take the 12 points for fourth place.