F1 Singapore 2022

Sergio Perez takes the win from Charles Leclerc, but is under investigation for a Safety Car infringement.

[McLaren](/formula-1-teams/mclaren) taking home double points with Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo rounding out the top five. [Charles Leclerc](/formula-1-drivers/charles-leclerc) at the Singapore Grand Prix. [Red Bull](/formula-1-teams/red-bull) driver managed the pace after overtaking Leclerc into Turn 1 on the opening lap.

Stewards cleared him of a safety car infringement an hour after he claimed the chequered flag. Read more at straitstimes.com.

Vettel, who is retiring after his final season with Aston Martin, was also the last Red Bull driver to win here in 2013. It was originally due to start at 8pm but eventually flagged off after 9.05pm. His last race win was in Monaco in May. Perez, who now has four F1 wins, said: “It was certainly my best performance, I controlled the race. He was always in control, super cool. The Mexican celebrated his second race win this season by pumping his fist in the air before hugging his teammates. But he was made to wait for over an hour before the victory was confirmed after an investigation was launched for a safety car infringement. Red Bull’s championship leader Max Verstappen, who started the race eighth, finished seventh. [made its return to Marina Bay for the first time](https://www.straitstimes.com/multimedia/photos/in-pictures-singapore-grand-prix-returns-to-the-marina-bay-street-circuit-after-a-two-year-hiatus) since 2019 - it was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 owing to the pandemic - when Sebastian Vettel won the race with Ferrari. [the start of the night race was delayed](https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/formula-one/formula-one-rain-delays-start-of-singapore-grand-prix) owing to heavy rain. It was the seventh time this season that the Monegasque has failed to convert pole position into a win, and the second time he was the bridesmaid in Singapore. Instead it was Sergio Perez who claimed the Singapore chequered flag for the first time after a rain-hit chaotic race in what he deemed as the best race of his life.

Sergio Perez emerged the winner but does he receive the highest score in Edd Straw's F1 driver ratings this week?

Schumacher’s race was a good example of fine margins as he was running just outside the points when he pitted for slicks a lap before the second safety car. His final Q2 lap, on intermediates, started well but began to get away from him at Turn 8 thanks to overworking the rear tyres early in the lap. Bottas should have made it out of Q1, but things didn’t work out well in terms of timing once the team committed to him staying out on his original set of intermediates. Albon’s race started to go wrong almost immediately with a spin at Turn 7 on the opening lap, clipping the wall. But once he reached the wetter part at Turn 16, the time slipped away thanks to the lack of grip. Unlike Stroll, he didn’t set a serious lap time on the slicks thanks to errors in tricky conditions, leaving him down in 14th. Opted to start Q3 on intermediates, which meant he was out of sync and without the chance to run longer on the softs and exploit the available grip. His race pace wasn’t as strong as Norris, but he did the ideal job for the team. But the switch to softs in Q3 improved matters, and although Norris had an untidy middle part of the lap sixth was a better result than expected. Started from the pits after a complete power unit change and was always likely to spend the race stuck in traffic. Lost a place to Sainz at the start, which was costly as he got stuck behind the Ferrari and lost touch with the leaders. [Described his race as “incredibly messy”](/formula-1/incredibly-messy-verstappen-on-his-worst-f1-race-of-2022/), with the anti-stall kicking in at the start and ensuring he finished the first lap down in 12th.

Should Mercedes have put Lewis Hamilton on full wet weather tyres at the start, as he wanted? Here's all the Singapore GP data.

1 20 No. Lap no. All the lap times by the drivers (in seconds, very slow laps excluded). The gaps between each driver on every lap compared to the leader’s average lap time. Lando Norris was already running fourth, and when Max Verstappen went off trying to pass him, it opened the door for the orange (and, temporarily, pink) cars to bag a valuable double top-five finish. Among the quickest to react was AlphaTauri, but they regretted the decision when But for a team which is supposedly going all-out for wins at this stage in the season, it’s disappointing they played it safe. And the theory of passing Leclerc and Perez is all well and good, but Hamilton would also have needed to pull far enough away from them to make a pit stop and emerge ahead – not easy given the early Safety Car disruption which tightened the pack up. Could Hamilton have pulled off the tactics used by some drivers in Monaco this year, running on full wets long enough before switching directly to slicks as the track dried? [Lewis Hamilton](/lewis-hamilton/), told his team he wasn’t happy with the selection.