The Singapore Forecast

The Singapore Grand Prix is one of the most spectacular looking races of the year; it is the only full night race on the calendar, the track lit up to create a bright strip of tarmac that weaves it’s way around the Marina Bay. It’s a beautiful sight as the cars thrash their way round within millimetres of the walls flashing past the contrasting old and new architecture of the city. It’s a perfect place for these machines, and Singapore is now firmly established as one of the centre pieces of the year.

The weather forecast for the race is rather grim. It’s usually quite warm out there, at the moment temperatures are due to be around 31C but there’s always a threat of rain despite no actual wet race so far in its five year history. Friday and Saturday are due to have some stormy times while Sunday is meant to just be cloudy.

It’ll be interesting to see what the conditions are under the lights if there is some H2O spillage, there’s often been a worry about the glare from the lights on a wet track but we’ve not had the opportunity to see just how bad it might be.

There are two DRS zones which will aid overtaking, while Pirelli have brought with them the medium and super-soft compounds. That’s two stages difference, so I imagine we’ll see quite a big difference in performance between the tyres which will certainly provide some intrigue with the strategy in a race which can last nearly two hours.

Pit lane time is high so they’ll want to minimise the stops, with perhaps getting rid of the super-softs early and depending on the mediums degradation go with a one or two stop. Alternatively drivers outside the top 10 might leave the super-softs till late in the race for a last gasp charge. With the heat and humidity as well, the drivers are certainly going to be working hard on Sunday night.

As is usual with most street circuits the down force levels are set to maximum here. The last two high down force tracks have been won by Mercedes. After rather timid showings at the low down force tracks in Belgium and Italy, I think Mercedes will once again pose a considerable threat for victory. Both drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg have gone well at Singapore before, even if overall the results don’t look overly convincing.

If you’re looking for the most likely challengers to the Red Bull steamroller then Mercedes are it. I can certainly see the Mercs getting pole position with either driver, although Lewis does seem to have the edge at the moment.

I’ll be very interested to see how Ferrari do now we go back to higher/medium down force tracks. They performed well in the past two races but was that merely down to them having a decent low down force package? For Fernando Alonso’s sake I hope not. He’s become frustrated with the team despite his public out pouring’s of affection. I think we’ll see a great drive from Alonso, as is often usual, but even more so now that Kimi Raikkonen has been announced as his team mate for next year. He’ll want to show them just how special a talent he is to a team who aren’t so in love with him any more.

Look out for Felipe Massa too. The pressure is off now in terms of his survival at Ferrari and I believe we could well be in for a few highlight performances from him over the next few races. He still wants to race on and what better way than perhaps grabbing a win. He was dominating this race in 2008 before a pit stop incident, he can do that again, he’s still capable.

Since the summer break Lotus have gone off the boil, a little, well a lot like last year when their performance dipped and they seemed to struggle to even make the podium at times. This time Kimi hasn’t even managed a point. Admittedly due to abnormal issues but still… Kimi had great race pace as usual in Italy, and I’m sure Lotus will grind out a few more decent results before the Finn leaves. However with their qualifying still suspect I can’t see Lotus genuinely challenging for a win unless they are on the first two rows. With a wet qualifying in prospect perhaps we’ll see Lotus have a chance to throw a surprise as can be applied to every other team.

Of course let’s not delude ourselves completely that this is going to be a tight tough race between the title contenders. At the moment there aren’t any real challengers at all to Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel (with the exception perhaps of a distant red car). Yes, we shouldn’t forget our three time world champion. He’s won in Singapore for the last two years; in fact last year sparked a four race winning streak.

And this year there’s only been a gap of two whole races where he hasn’t won. Actually in general Vettel’s won every other race, and here we were thinking it was a close season when in reality almost under the radar Vettel’s been dominating.

Now he’s won two consecutive races people have come to realise that there might not be a real chance for anyone to come back at him now. Of course Vettel could retire this weekend and Alonso win which would bring the gap down to just over a race win of points. It would then look very much like game on again; but that’s living in an unreality bubble like when you thought Alonso was never going to lose his 48 point lead over Vettel last year… Stranger things have happened, but no, Vettel and most importantly Red Bull, are too good to let this go. He’ll be up there this weekend, he might not win, equally he could win, but overall he’ll be quietly dominating.

I’d still like people to keep a watch out for Esteban Gutierrez; he’s been very quick the last two races, and at some point he’ll put it together at the right time so people will notice. His Sauber team mate Nico Hulkenberg is the main driver in the shop window now. With Kimi going to Ferrari next year, there’s a tasty seat at Lotus which should fit perfectly for Nico. The only thing is, I’m not sure Sauber are capable of delivering again this weekend.

Force India will continue to suffer to the detriment of Paul di Resta. He’s missing from the list of drivers who could potentially move up. It’s not been a good last few races for the Scot.

Toro Rosso are the form midfield team. They really are about the sixth best out there at the moment and 

are definite points contenders at every race. Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne are pushing each other, and they’re both equally capable of getting a decent result. I think this could be a good weekend for them both. Toro Rosso should at least be targeting McLaren this weekend.

My final forecast for the race will be that Jules Bianchi will once again beat Max Chilton. I think that’s a fairly safe one.

So I thoroughly expect this race to be a lot closer than the preceding two, especially between the Mercedes and Red Bull drivers. With the prospect of a rain affected weekend and the likelihood of there being more than one safety car period, the Singapore race is set to once again light up the Formula 1 season.

all photo's taken from autosport.com