Postcards from… Singapore

The synergy of drivers and team resulted in Ferrari's first win of the season, ending a drought that had lasted since Spielberg last year. Even more significantly, Carlos Sainz's success put an end to the illustrious streak of victories from Red Bull and Max Verstappen, and their dream – never voiced, but certainly harboured – of becoming the first team to win every race in a season.

Sainz was impeccable from the first lap of free practice on Friday and unleashed all his aggression in qualifying to seal pole position. In the race, he showed the tactical acumen of a defender from his beloved Real Madrid. Throughout the first part of the race, Carlos was supported perfectly by his teammate Charles Leclerc. The Monegasque made the most of the slight advantage of the softs to get past Mercedes driver George Russell, on the mediums, at the start. This allowed Leclerc to begin the teamwork behind Sainz – staving off the threat of a potential undercut. A safety car then triggered a series of pit stops, which meant that his own chance of victory was taken away in the traffic, but Leclerc was still able to play a generous team game. Ferrari managed to make the most of the opportunity following Red Bull's first chink of weakness; to achieve this they prepared in the best possible way and executed their plan without making the slightest mistake. As a result, the fight for second place in the constructors' standings is increasingly open, with Mercedes now only 24 points ahead.

George Russell tried until the very end to win the Singapore Grand Prix. Passed at the start by Leclerc, the Mercedes driver was never really in a position to attack Sainz, precisely because the Monegasque acted as a buffer. Then, taking advantage of a virtual safety car caused by Ocon, he and team mate Lewis Hamilton risked a second stop to try and exploit the performance differential between the set of mediums available to them and the used hards that the two Ferrari drivers and McLaren's Lando Norris had in front of them. It was relatively easy to get past Leclerc, who appeared to be in more difficulty than his teammate in the second part of the race, but that wasn't the case with Norris. Russell was also feeling Hamilton breathing down his neck, so tried absolutely everything to get past – and overstepped the mark on the final lap, ending up against the barriers at turn 10. It was a big price to pay for never giving up. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

You have to go back to November 13 last year to find another podium photo that doesn't feature a Red Bull driver. Back then, it was George Russell who won the Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo, ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz. On that day, Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez finished in sixth and seventh places respectively, a result not dissimilar to that of last Sunday (with Max fifth and Checo in eighth). And so, a series of 15 consecutive wins, and just as many podium places, came to an end – with the number of victories in a row for the reigning world champion also stopped at 10. Yet in reality, Singapore was just a misstep that has absolutely no impact on the two championships, other than slightly delaying a mathematical certainty (already last Sunday there was the chance that Red Bull could seal the constructors' title). However, it will certainly hurt the pride of many in the Milton Keynes squad, who had secretly aimed to end the year unbeaten. To see their reaction, we just have to wait for next weekend in Suzuka…

Eight days on track were enough for Liam Lawson to score the first world championship points of his career. Catapulted into the AlphaTauri seat on Saturday morning in Zandvoort to replace the injured Daniel Ricciardo, the New Zealander has progressively and steadily made progress: 13th in Holland, 11th in Monza and now ninth last Sunday in Singapore. He also managed to knock Max Verstappen out of Q3 in qualifying, securing a place in the top 10 on the grid for the first time. For AlphaTauri, Lawson's ninth place represents the best result of 2023: a breath of fresh air in a season that has been somewhat lacking in satisfaction as well as points. However, this makes the question of choosing next year's drivers even more problematic. A nice head-scratcher for the duo of Peter Bayer and Laurent Mekies, preparing to take over the reins of the team from veteran Franz Tost.

In a weekend so full of emotions and surprises, it was quite difficult to choose the most disappointed team or driver of the Singapore Grand Prix. Yes, there was obviously Red Bull, but any team that has won the first 14 races of the season has little to complain about.

So, we have Aston Martin and Fernando Alonso, who had hoped to rediscover the form seen in Zandvoort on a high-downforce track, maximising their chances of being first to interrupt the Red Bull rollercoaster. But instead it was a weekend to forget, which started on Friday with a stark realisation that the pace wasn't there, continued on Saturday with Stroll's crash in qualifying that forced him out of the race, and ended with a problematic grand prix that included a penalty, a mistake during the pit stop and a spin. As a result, Alonso finished plumb last of the drivers who took the chequered flag on Sunday evening.

Another candidate was Esteban Ocon, forced to retire on lap 43 with a suspected gearbox problem while running sixth. For the Frenchman, who had just come out on top of a heated battle with Perez and his former team mate Alonso, it was a huge disappointment, which came on the very day of his 27th birthday. Alpine at least had the consolation prize of a decent result with Pierre Gasly, who ended up sixth.