From third on the grid, Lewis Hamilton crossed the finish line in sixth place. Tyre performance was something of a mystery for all teams going into the race, with only one hour of free practice and the Sprint race being run on Intermediate tyres in the rain. The Hard tyre had been ruled out, so the Scuderia, wanting to put pole sitter Max Verstappen under as much pressure as possible, took the decision to split its strategy, putting Charles on Soft tyres for the first stint and Lewis on Mediums.
The race. When the lights went out, the two SF-26s maintained position after Leclerc had managed to pull alongside Verstappen going into turn 1. It became clear that the Soft was the best race tyre tonight and so Lewis pitted on lap 19 to get rid of his Mediums, dropping to seventh place. On lap 24, it was Charles’ turn to pit, taking on Mediums, coming out in fourth place, one ahead of Lewis. After the McLaren pair pitted, the Ferrari pair were back in their grid positions.On lap 39, the race was neutralised as a Virtual Safety Car was called to retrieve Lance Stroll’s stricken Aston Martin. Leclerc took the opportunity to make a cheap pit stop to go back onto the Softs, while Hamilton missed the pit entry and decided to stay out. On fresher tyres, it took Leclerc just five laps to catch and pass his team-mate while Lewis, with a very long 44 lap stint on Softs, was powerless to fend off first Kimi Antonelli, then Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, eventually coming home sixth.
Next Austin. Overall, this second consecutive weekend in the tropics has been a positive one for the Scuderia, with a double podium finish in yesterday’s Sprint race, a front row start today and another second place in the race. It means the team leaves Singapore with a total of 39 points to further consolidate its second place in the Constructors’ championship. Next on the calendar it’s Austin in a fortnight’s time for the US Grand Prix, the start of another triple header, all in the Americas.
Charles Leclerc #16
We gave it our all today and extracted the maximum, so I’m happy with our result. Red Bull and Max (Verstappen) were very strong all weekend, and even though I pushed throughout it wasn’t quite enough to catch him in the end. We had a good pace and made the right calls today, with a different strategy that worked out well for us today. Next up we head to Austin. We will see what we can do there, and what all our competitors will bring in terms of upgrades which might reshuffle things again for the final set of races this season.
Lewis Hamilton #44
Today wasn’t the result we were looking for and it was on me. At a track that’s difficult to overtake, you need to try something different and I chose to start on a new Medium tyre, to go long and try to make a one-stop work. Unfortunately the Medium didn’t perform as well as the Soft. I had a good second stint and the pace was back, but I couldn’t make the progress I needed. Under the VSC, the team called me in but I missed the entry. After that, I decided to stay out and try to hold track position to the end but in the closing laps, I was struggling massively with tyre degradation and lost three places, finishing P6, which doesn't reflect the pace we had in the car today. A painful lesson today, but I take full responsibility for the decisions I made. Not every call will work out, and I can accept getting it wrong but I’m sorry to the team for the points we lost today. They put so much into every weekend, and I wanted to deliver more for them. I’ll continue to put the work in and come back fighting at the next race.
Fred Vasseur, Team Principal
Overall, it was a strong weekend for us. We finished P2 and P3 in the Sprint, P2 and P3 in qualifying, and today Charles was P2 while Lewis was very close to the podium. Max (Verstappen) had a little bit more pace than us across the weekend, so we still have work to do to close the gap, but the team delivered a solid performance and we scored good points. On the strategy side, everyone went into the race with very little information on the tyres. The Soft turned out to be stronger than expected compared to the Medium, so starting from P2 and P3 it made sense to split the strategies and keep our options open against Max. That's why Lewis had a more difficult first stint, but it gave him more flexibility later in the race. We also kept both the one-stop and two-stop scenarios open depending on how the race evolved and whether a Safety Car or a VSC came into play. When the VSC was deployed, we called both cars in while running P2 and P3. Lewis unfortunately missed the pit entry, and that probably cost him the opportunity to fight for the podium. These things can happen during a race. Now the focus is on understanding everything from this weekend, taking the positives, and coming back stronger in Austin.
