Red Bull streak is over but rivals remain wary of points leader

SINGAPORE – Sunday at the 2023 Formula One Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix will be remembered as the night Red Bull’s quest for the perfect season ended.

Unbeaten across 14 grands prix before their arrival at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, with Max Verstappen winning 12 and teammate Sergio Perez taking the other two, the runaway leaders in the drivers’ and constructors’ championships saw their aura of invincibility shattered.

Verstappen, who was on a 10-race winning streak that has effectively guaranteed him a third straight world title, finished fifth. It was his lowest finish since the Brazilian Grand Prix in November 2022, when he was sixth.

The flying Dutchman has dominated Formula One this term but he and his RB19 looked out of sorts throughout the week, with several issues – understeer, oversteer, braking – leaving the team flummoxed.

He started 11th and managed to move up to eighth by lap 7 but a late pit stop pushed him further down the order. He clawed his way back to fifth, with closest rival Perez, the 2022 winner in Singapore, eighth.

Verstappen said: “Clearly we learnt quite a bit from today and maybe what we did wrong yesterday. I cannot go into details – the problem is we can only show next year, when we come back, if it’s better or not.”

The car’s limitations from Saturday’s qualifying were still there “but to a lesser extent” on Sunday, he added.

“Normally our car is always better in the race and you could see that again today, especially on the medium at the end we had good pace. I was managing my tyres in that last stint to have good tyres to the end, but I was quite happy.

“I knew this streak would end one day. To win, everything has to be perfect. If a few details are not right, you will immediately fall further behind. Considering the track, I expect us to be ahead again in Japan.”

On being overtaken for the first time in 2023, he shrugged and said: “These stats, I don’t care about them. It’s normal, I was on old tyres. Not much you can do.”

This speed bump will not stop his title charge, though, with 10 points for his fifth-place finish moving him to 374 in the standings – stretching his overall advantage to 151 from a previous 145 with seven rounds remaining. But he will not seal the championship at the Suzuka circuit in Japan.

A place in the record books may have gone but Perez was adamant fifth place was proof of Verstappen’s world-class quality. He said: “He enters the points zone after being excluded from Q3 but this is certainly not the position that belongs to a car that has won 14 of the last 15 races.”

Thanks to his third-place finish on Sunday, Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton (180) moved into third above Fernando Alonso (170) while Ferrari’s race winner Carlos Sainz (142) is now fifth, ahead of his teammate Charles Leclerc (123).

Despite halting Red Bull’s run, Sainz was not getting ahead of himself or playing up Ferrari’s chances for the rest of the season. He said: “I wouldn’t be surprised if they are winning the last few races of the season.

“Singapore gave us the chance and we took it well. But Red Bull is still going to be up there and they’re going to be very, very, very difficult to beat.

The competitiveness of Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren in a “super exciting race” was “a good day for Formula One”, said McLaren chief executive officer Zak Brown.

Hamilton added: “I don’t know why they’re off, pace-wise, but it’s great to see others have picked up a huge amount of pace and how the Ferraris have really stepped it up. It’s a positive.”