✨✨SPOILERS: Singapore Bore✨✨

Good morning. I’ll admit, the race at Marina Bay was a bit of a snore. But, after the cinematic experience at Baku everything feels a bit less impressive. The race this weekend gave us a bit of excitement at the start and ended with an impressive 22 second win for Norris.

The real drama this weekend revolved around McLaren’s mini DRS, Ricciardo’s emotional goodbye vibes, and a strong response to the FIA crackdown on swearing. Drama that I’m here for to be honest.

Now, we have a small break until we return to a normal track in Austin that will put the latest car upgrades to the real test.

-Jake Williamson

📊 Standings

🏎 Singapore a Bore

Andrea Stell got his wish of having boring races for McLaren thanks to Marina Bay. This race was a blockbuster hit for team Papaya but a relative snooze compared to Baku last week.

Instead of a sequel to the Baku saga, we got what street circuits are supposed to provide: boring racing. Singapore is a true street track with walls that keep drivers neatly on the track while reducing chances of overtakes during the race. This race and Monaco are similar in that way. The qualifying order generally determines the race result. Of course, we had position changes throughout the race, but most of the top 5 were off having their own race, and we were left just watching cars go round and round. I am not complaining; just observing!

Qualifying

Most of the excitement happened on Saturday. Watching these teams duke it out for positions was quite the thrill.

Some Quali highlights:

• Ricciardo out in Q1 leaving him in hot water with VCARB

• Williams both out in Q2

• Perez surprise Q2 elimination

• Sainz bizarre Q3 crash

• Leclerc gets a time deleted putting him in P9

• Mercedes in rare form

• Piastri struggles on the soft which put him in P5

The Race

As always, the first lap of the race was full of action. Nado got a good launch (finally) that kept him in front of Verstappen. A few cars took the long way round to avoid contact, and Colapinto pulled a ballsy dive bomb on his teammate Alex Albon. Other than that, the cars shuffled into their post-turn 1 order and sort of stayed there with occasional swaps in the mid field.

The big news was Norris casually driving to a 22 second lead toward the end of the race that rhymed with the win at Zandvoort.

How wrong was I?

Let’s look at my predictions from the newsletter that came out before the weekend. I was remarkably close on the top 5. Alonso was in good form but the Mercedes decided to show up and ruin my predictions. The Ferraris probably would have dominated if they hadn’t destroyed their Q3 results. Verstappen did much better than prior years which was a huge surprise to me but Perez returned to his all too common struggle bus.

Overall, I am overjoyed that I got any of these right because calling race results is hard. But, maybe I’m getting better team!

🌎 Flexible Bodywork Strikes Again

One of the biggest stories going into the Singapore weekend continues to be the revelation regarding McLaren’s ‘Mini DRS’ and the supposed boost it has given team Papaya in their recent run to the top of the field. 

If you aren’t caught up, then here is the short and sweet version. During the televised broadcast of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku, some viewers noticed the upper plane of the rear wing on the McLaren opening slightly on the long straights. The key word here is ‘slightly.’ Of course, the DRS flap is supposed to open on the straights (the DRS zones to be specific) to reduce drag and increase top speed. However, if you aren’t trailing a car with a gap of less than 1 second, you aren’t allowed to use DRS. Since Oscar Piastri’s car was leading the race, their DRS was not supposed to be engaged, even slightly. 

Quickly taking to the internet to spew hatred and gossip (we love you, fans), people pointed out that the upper plane on the McLaren rear wing created a small gap when the surface was under high aerodynamic load. This was especially noticeable at the outer edges of the wing separation. Drama ensued when fans of other teams started to cry havoc about the top-speed advantage a system like this would afford a team. Basically, people started to accuse Team Papaya of cheating.

Soon, rival teams took notice and started making noise in the media about the newly minted ‘mini DRS’ on the MCL38. There were no formal complaints lodged against anyone, but teams were clearly upset about the possibility of McLaren having an unfair advantage. In an ultimate plot twist, the FIA investigated the accusations deeply and deemed the rear wing legal. 

This is where we have to give you the rundown of some rules surrounding aerodynamic parts on the car, really any bodywork. In plain language (because the rule is needlessly pedantic), the rule states that all aerodynamic parts of the car should be rigid and immobile. So, these parts have to be solidly attached and not move about. Easy right? Well, no, the rules also carve out how these parts are tested. The tests are done while the parts are static, which is probably why they are called static load tests. During this process, the FIA scrutineers hang various weights from certain parts of the cars. Each weight must hang from the designated part and not cause excessive flex. Keep in mind the word “excessive.”

No material object is completely rigid, so the FIA must allow for some flexibility in these lightweight composite car parts. The flex range can be anywhere from 2mm to 20mm, depending on the part of the car being tested. So, some flex is okay with the FIA. Furthermore, the FIA’s static tests will never be able to replicate the aggressive aerodynamic load produced while a car is in a racing environment. Therefore, there is a huge gulf between passing the static tests and racing on the track. 

This aerodynamic flexing was an issue at the start of 2024, with the finger pointed at McLaren and Mercedes for their front wing designs. Now, we see more flexibility in the Ferrari front wing and the rear wing of the McLaren. So is the flexible bodywork getting out of hand? Well, Red Bull thinks so, surprise surprise. The team imploding on itself is now complaining of other teams doing well. 

Helmut Marko has gone so far as to say, “There is no grey area. It says exactly [in the rules] that the wing must not change aerodynamically while driving, so either you do another testing method or you change the rules or you ban this wing.”

He’s not wrong. The issue is the FIA has deemed all cars compliant with the rules in their current state. All cars pass the static load tests but clearly have some flexible pieces. So, contrary to Marko’s comments, there is a gray area.

Short term solution

In the short term, the FIA has requested that McLaren change their rear wing to prevent this ‘mini DRS’ effect from continuing. McLaren granted the request and will employ a different version of their rear wing at the Austin GP in October. 

What Next?

The FIA could do two things:

1. Declare the wing as legal which would trigger a huge redesign of bodywork from other teams and level the playing field. 

2. Rewrite the regs, further restrict tolerances, and update their bodywork tests.

Why this will continue

Frankly, this flexible component debate is destined to continue. It has been happening since the ground effect came onto the scene and will continue beyond because these lightweight composites need to be able to flex a little bit. Furthermore, you can’t realistically test these components to failure because you would be breaking a very expensive piece of the car that takes weeks to build. So, the FIA has to develop new ways to regulate this. 

As long as the FIA has rules and ways to test whether teams are following them, we will have teams working on ways to innovate and keep the car legal. There is a fine line between ‘cheating’ and ‘innovating,’ and that is part of what makes F1 so exciting. Whether the FIA gives in on this issue or overhauls the regulatory framework, we will see major changes in car design.

🚀Headline Sprint

Could Ricciardo and Perez be out of time? Both Ricciardo and Perez may be in the hot seat again with a short break between races. It’s pretty clear Liam Lawson is expected to take the empty seat at VCARB in 2025 but rumors were flying all weekend about Ricciardo racing for the last time this weekend. A fact that was echoed by the VCARB team principal in his statement, “Given this may have been Daniel’s last race, we wanted to give him the chance to savor it and go out with the fastest lap.” Why RB would ditch Ricciardo mid-season has everything to do with confidential contract language. Logically, it doesn’t make sense unless Lawson can fight for more points, similar to what Colapinto is doing for Williams. As for Perez, he is likely staying for the season but probably be replaced in 2025, given his lack of performance.

Franco Colapinto dive bombs his teammate: Franco showed his true colors at the start of the Singapore GP this weekend with an epic bomb into turn 1. A move that flustered his teammate Alex Albon. Albon sounded angry when relaying the move to his race engineer, but what is there to be angry about? Well, nothing really. Albon is accustomed to Logan Sargeant lagging behind or crashing so Albon may be coming to terms with having a competitive teammate again.

Rookie sprint race gets potential green light: You may recall that a discussion at the last F1 commission meeting about giving young drivers more mileage resulted in the idea of a rookie sprint race. This race would give reserve drivers, up-and-comers, or anyone else on the team's radar a chance at driving an F1 car in a race environment. This idea was well received and went on to a sort of feasibility study. Apparently that study went well and the rookie race is ready for an official vote at the next commission meeting on October 2.

Red Bull and VCARB relationship under the microscope: Team boss at McLaren, Andrea Stella, had some diplomatic but definitive words about VCARB’s fastest lap attempt with Daniel Ricciardo. If you didn’t catch it, Ricciardo pitted in the finals laps for softs and took fastest lap from race leader Norris. This calls into question the relationship between VCARB and Red Bull. They may be under the same parent brand but the teams must act autonomously in the fight for the title. Two teams working together to alter a championship could bring fresh scrutiny from the FIA.

🛞 FIA Fowl Language: Taken Too Far?

"I mean, we have to differentiate between our sport – motorsport – and rap music," Ben Sulayem said.

"We're not rappers, you know. They say the F-word how many times per minute? We are not on that. That's them and we are [us]."

This was FIA president, and enemy number 1 to F1 fans, Mohammed Ben Sulayem talking about limiting strong language in Formula 1 after a snowballing controversy took place over the race weekend in Singapore.

Where we started

This whole curse word controversy started before race weekend even started with the FIA taking a stronger stance on the topic. This led to drivers issuing strong opinions relating to using choice words and most of them agreed that cracking down on cursing on the radios was childish and unnecessary.

Where it ended

Unfortunately, it’s been common to hear about the use of strong language in F1 ever since the sport rose to prominence in the current ‘Drive to Survive’ era. However, this weekend took the topic to new heights when Max Verstappen was summoned to the stewards for the use of the ‘F word’ in a press conference while describing the setup on his car. The stewards decided to take a stronger stance and sentenced Verstappen to perform “works of public service” as a punishment for his crime.

Max clearly wasn’t happy with this decision and decided to stay tight-lipped in post-race press events. In a sort of silent protest, Verstappen gave short answers to media when he spoke at all.

Yes, this is where we are. The FIA seems obsessed with creating problems out of thin air while ignoring real issues with the sport.

Is using offensive language against the rules? Frankly, yes. Especially in press conferences and media events, the athletes and teams are expected to stay polite and respectful because they represent the sport. However, strong language is a part of our culture, and this crackdown looks bad on everyone involved. From a fan perspective, these overly prude rules will only turn off young fans and will eventually crush the rise in popularity of motorsport.

💨 Hot Laps

Hamilton and Russell are ill after the Singapore GP from heat exhaustion

Bottas could be confirmed for Audi on a one-year contract, indicating the German team will select safety and experience over young talent.

Sainz fined for crossing a hot track after his crash in Q3 on Saturday.

Verstappen hints at quitting F1 early after his ‘public service’ punishment after using strong language in a press conference.

🤯Brain Food

When was the last time the FIA gave formal warnings over using swear words in media appearances?

📖Answer

The FIA formally warned Mercedes, Toto Wolff, and Ferrari’s Fred Vasseur over the use of swear words in a press conference at the Las Vegas GP last year when Sainz hit a loose drain cover.

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