TYRE DEBRIEF: Sainz and Leclerc salvage Ferrari’s race with wild strategy

Lando Norris dominated proceedings at Singapore with a brilliant performance, but Ferrari’s strategists also earned their money at the Marina Bay Circuit, executing two very different, but masterful strategies with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. F1Technical’s lead journalist Balazs Szabo delivers his strategy debrief.

Lando Norris took his third victory of the season, clinching a dominant triumph at the tough Singapore Grand Prix. The Briton’s dominant win at yesterday’s Singapore Grand Prix marked McLaren’s return to the top step of the Singapore podium, after a break of 15 years since Lewis Hamilton won in 2009.

Having struggled for pace in recent rounds, reigning champion Max Verstappen returned to the podium, securing a second place for Red Bull. The result also meant that the Dutchman is yet to win at the Marina Bay Circuit, while his second place also saw his current winless streak extend to eight Grands Prix.

Third was Oscar Piastri in the other McLaren, thus securing his ninth top-three finish from 40 Grand Prix starts. The Woking-based team has now managed to get at least one driver on the podium for the past 14 races, with a total of 17 podium finishes. Daniel Ricciardo took the race fastest lap for the 17th time in his career, the last one dating back to Monza 2021, at the wheel of a McLaren.

Obligatory one-stop

For the 15th running of the Singapore Grand Prix, Formula One’s tyre supplier Pirelli has chosen the same compounds as last year: C3 as Hard, C4 as Medium and C5 as Soft. In fact, this tyre selection is the same as at the past two races at Monza and Baku, although those circuits feature very different characteristics.

Ahead of the 62-lap Singapore race, Pirelli had suggested that a one-stop strategy would be the best way to complete today’s race distance, with the long pit lane and the lack of overtaking opportunities making a multiple-stop strategy tough to execute.

Pirelli’s prediction turned out to be the right one. As expected, most of the field went for the Medium at the start: 14 drivers lined up on the C4, four (Lance Stroll, Valtteri Bottas, Zhou Guanyu and Kevin Magnussen) on the C3 and two on the C5 (Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo).

The Medium proved to be very flexible in terms of stint length, allowing nearly all drivers to complete the race making just one pit stop. Ricciardo and Magnussen completed a late pit stop, but that was rather a strategic move. Both switched to the red-walled softs for the dying stages of the race, with the Australian managing to set the quickest race lap to steal the additional point away from race leader Lando Norris.

Depending on track position and traffic, there were several bold strategy moves. Struggling in traffic and stuck behind the Visa Cash RB of Yuki Tsunoda, Ferrari pitted Carlos Sainz very early on, calling him in for his tyre change on Lap 13.

It looked very bold from Ferrari as the Spaniard still had plenty of life in his mediums and the very early stop forced him to complete 79 per cent of the race on the same set of hards. The first laps after his pit stop saw Sainz pick off several drivers, and as he was able to complete the overtaking moves as soon as he closed in on his rivals, he did not spend any time in turbulent air.

Having completed his moves and with several drivers pitting, Sainz found himself in P6, but he ultimately finished seventh after executing an excellent tyre management during his mammoth second stint. In fact, Ferrari’s Spanish driver did the longest stint of all, covering no less than 49 laps on the Hard.

On the other end of the spectrum, Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc extended their first stint. The Australian pitted on Lap 38 while the Monegasque came in for his first stop on Lap 36.

Commenting on the race, Pirelli’s motorsport director Mario Isola said: “All in all, this was a relatively straightforward race, without a single neutralisation, the first time that has happened in the history of this race.

“The one-stop proved to be definitely the quickest and all three compounds behaved as expected. The Medium and the Hard clearly saw the most use, but the Soft also proved its worth, as could be seen for example in the times set by Hamilton on full fuel load in his first 17 lap stint, or with Tsunoda over 28 laps in the second part of the race, with a perfectly acceptable level of degradation.

“When it comes to evaluating tyre performance, an important factor to consider is the level of pace management adopted by the drivers, together with how much traffic they encountered at various stages of the race. That was particularly relevant with the Medium, because depending on their pace, some drivers were able to extend their first stint well beyond the window predicted by the strategy simulations, which opened up the possibility of using the Soft, as was the case with the aforementioned Tsunoda and Gasly.

“After four races in five weeks, Formula 1 takes a short break now, ahead of the triple-header in the Americas. But for our group, the work on track continues, with four days of testing which is only possible thanks to the vital support of the teams, in this case, Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren.”