Carlos Sainz Wins Singapore Grand Prix to Snap Red Bull Dominance

Carlos Sainz (55) wins with Ferrari at the Marina Bay Circuit for the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix (Photo: Scuderia Ferrari)

MARINA BAY, Singapore – With Ferrari being the class of the field on both Friday and Saturday, all eyes turned to Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix with the anticipation that the streak of dominance from Red Bull in 2023 would finally be snapped after a subpar qualifying effort with Carlos Sainz leading the field to begin the Grand Prix. An open playing field allowed new faces to run up front and compete for the victory that had yet to be seen this year.

While most of the grid was solidified on Saturday during qualifying, some changes were made before the race started. Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu started from the pit lane following changes overnight. Following his horrible crash during the first qualifying round, Aston Martin announced that Lance Stroll had withdrawn.

In the closing minutes before the formation lap, the tire blankets were removed and the first chance was to see what strategies would be taking place. A majority of the field elected to start on the safer strategy of starting the Medium compound tires, while Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri elected to start on the Soft compound tires. The Red Bull pair of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez plus Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas selected to start on the Hard compound tires.

After the formation lap, the field returned to the grid and awaited the lights to go out. Soon, the field set off with Sainz holding onto the lead while Leclerc, using the Soft tires, got ahead of the Mercedes of George Russell. At the same time, Hamilton had made his way up to third place, albeit using a bit more extra track than needed, much to the chagrin of Russell and the McLaren of Lando Norris.

Further back in the pack, Verstappen had started his charge up the field. At the same time, Tsunoda’s day ended before it genuinely could begin for the second race in a row after a collision between himself and Perez. Further up front, the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso and the Alpine of Esteban Ocon made quick work of the high-qualifying Haas of Kevin Magnussen. He settled in while Verstappen had his sights on the Haas.

Hamilton had quickly let Russell through following his excursion off-track to save himself from a penalty. Still, Norris also wasn’t happy since he lost a spot in the exchange. However, Hamilton obliged and let the McLaren through. Guanyu, who had started on pit lane, was brought down to the pits to swap from the Soft tires to the Hard compound tires and was sent on his way.

The race soon turned into tire management to stretch out as long as possible before their first pit stop. Sainz did a masterful job keeping teammate Leclerc just in range while the field ran in line to try to survive as teams were figuring out the best possible pace. Verstappen was chasing Alonso and Ocon while both Haas cars were looking for their first points since the Miami Grand Prix back in May.

But the conservative pace soon ended as the yellow flags flew when Williams driver Logan Sargeant found himself in the barriers in Turn 8. While he could not get stuck into the wall, the pieces of carbon fiber and the stuck wing brought out the Safety Car. 

The Safety Car was in the window of the first round of pit stops. With that, most of the field decided to swap to the Hard compound tires to make it through the end of the race. However, Red Bull chose to leave Verstappen and Perez out since they had started on the Hard compound tires. They had yet to make it to their window to make it to the end of the race on the Medium Tires.

Carlos Sainz (55) leads Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc (16) at the Marina Bay Circuit for the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix (Photo: Scuderia Ferrari)

The pit stop was not without drama as in the chaos of the pit lane, both Leclerc and Hamilton were held a small amount as they needed to wait for traffic to get by, dropping them to sixth and seventh, respectively. 

Soon, the SC returned to the pits as Sainz led Verstappen, Russell, Perez and Norris to the restart. Russell and Norris quickly worked on the Red Bull duo on the older tires and set off to chase down Sainz in the lea, and quickly, Russell had his Mercedes at the gearbox of the Ferrari and got to work trying to take the lead in the Grand Prix.

Verstappen and Perez soon were struggling on their Hard compound tires. Leclerc had gotten past the championship leader, and Perez had created a bit of a DRS train, holding it down in seventh, trying his best to hold off the faster Alonso. Behind them, close wheel-to-wheel action between the Haas of Magnussen and the Alpine of Pierre Galsy soon ended with the Haas losing out after going into the runoff and falling the order.

The tires had finally worn out for both Red Bull drivers and they were soon called into the pits with Perez first after getting passed by Ocon. A lap later, Verstappen pitted for Mediums, falling to 15th, and set off to make up as many points as possible.

But more action was about to happen. Soon, issues arose for Alpine and Ocon as he slowed to a stop on the circuit out of Turn 2 seemingly with a failure of the car, thus bringing out the Virtual Safety Car. Because of this, a new batch of strategy took place as teams hoped to take advantage of the faster delta taking the pit lane. 

Williams called in Alex Albon for a switch of tires. At the same time, Mercedes doubletacked both Russell and Hamilton to switch to the Medium Tires. Alonso also went down pit lane, but a slow stop and serving a penalty from the first pit stop after crossing the line at pit entry sent him further down the order. 

The VSC was lifted and set up to be a grandstand finish as the top three were on older tires while the Mercedes duo tried to force their way up through the field on their new Medium compound tires. Alonso’s day soon went from bad to worse as he went off course in Turn 14 and fell even further behind the pack.

Verstappen started to work his way back up through the field on his newer Medium tires, getting around the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg and setting his sights for higher up the order. Further up the order, the Mercedes duo was making time and cutting down the gap to the leaders, soon getting within sight of Leclerc.

It was only a short time before Russell and Hamilton got around Leclerc and set their sights on Norris and Sainz. Meanwhile, Verstappen worked through the points as he got around the rookie Liam Lawson and his AlphaTauri. Shortly after that, he got around the McLaren of Piastri, who had worked his way up into the back of the grid into the top 10 and finally got around Gasly to settle into sixth place.

Meanwhile, on the edge of being in and out of the points, a good battle was forming between the other Red Bull of Perez, Lawson, and Albon. But at the front, Sainz was working out how to try to keep the league. His goal was to keep Norris as close as possible to create a buffer ahead of the hard-charging Russell and Hamilton, which worked out. 

In the closing stages, Russell and Hamilton stayed close to Norris’s tail, but they could be held off in the closing laps before, in the final lap, the Singapore Grand Prix had one last excitement to give fans. Going into Turn 10, Russell clipped a barrier and went straight into the wall, ending his day and what would’ve been a podium finish. With that, Sainz and Norris could quickly return to the end of the lap.

Carlos Sainz (55) embraces McLaren’s Lando Norris (4) after winning at the Marina Bay Street Circuit in the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix for Ferrari (Photo: Scuderia Ferrari)

Coming out of the final corner to take the checkered flag for the first time this year came Sainz to win the Singapore Grand Prix, with Norris coming in second with Hamilton closing out the podium finishers. Leclerc held off a charging Verstappen in the final lap to close out the top five.

Gasly came home sixth with Piastri salvaging the day with seventh, ahead of Perez, who, even with a five-second time penalty, still finished eighth. Lawson came home ninth to score his first-ever Formula 1 points in his third race with Magnussen rounding out the top 10.

Rounding out the runners came Albon ahead of Guanyu, Hulkenberg, Sargeant and Alonso. Meanwhile, Russell’s last lap incident joined him with Bottas (who suffered a system failure in his car in the closing stages), Ocon and Tsunoda as those who failed to finish the race.

Sainz winning the Singapore Grand Prix was the first time all season that someone other than Red Bull had won and the first time since Brazil in 2022, meaning that Red Bull will not be undefeated in 2023. The Formula 1 calendar now heads to Japan for the Japanese Grand Prix at the Suzuka International Racing Course.

With the victory from Sainz and Ferrari, all eyes now turn to see if new teams can take to the podium’s top step to take the fight even closer to Red Bull. It will be interesting to see how Red Bull responds in Japan and if this was just a one-time occurrence.