Ferrari ends Red Bull's record winning streak

Singapore Thanks to Carlos Sainz's victory at the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday night, September 17, the Ferrari F1 racing team cut the record streak of Max Verstappen and Red Bull.

The Singapore street race was an exciting two-hour affair, with a safety car, a virtual safety car and a series of dramatic on-track battles. These developments contributed to a dream ending for Ferrari and Sainz, with the Spaniard taking the lead in 1 hour, 46 minutes, 37.418 seconds.

This was only Sainz's second win for the famous Italian team. With that, he and Ferrari ended Verstappen and Red Bull's winning streak of the last 10 races, since George Russell won the Sao Paulo Grand Prix - the penultimate race of last season.

Carlos Saizn leads the race on the Singapore track on September 17. Photo: F1

"Ferrari dominated qualifying and then finished the race well. We did everything perfectly. During the race, I felt in control, relaxed and confident because the car had enough speed to do whatever I wanted. I'm over the moon with today's victory," Sainz said after the race.

Sainz was not exaggerating, as he controlled the race skillfully from the start. On the contrary, unlike usual, Verstappen struggled throughout the race to finish fifth overall from 11th place in a difficult race for Red Bull. At the end of the race, Sainz succeeded in defending the lead against suffocating pressure from McLaren's Lando Norris and especially the Mercedes duo George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.

That pressure on Sainz was only relieved when George Russell crashed out on the final lap. Russell and Hamilton had successfully risked a two-stop strategy by taking advantage of the safety car to change tyres. The Mercedes duo had even come close to beating Sainz and Norris thanks to the advantage of fresher tyres. But the difficult overtaking characteristics of the Singapore street circuit prevented the two Brits from breaking away in the final laps.

From the start of the race, seeing Red Bull's instability, Ferrari knew that the Singapore Grand Prix was a golden opportunity for them to take first place. The Italian team entered the race determined to win and implemented every possible tactic to do so, even sacrificing Sainz's teammate - Charles Leclerc - to keep the lead for the Spaniard.

Leclerc, who started third, was the only driver in the top 10 to start on softs. And the risk paid off when the Monaco driver overtook Russell at the start. Up front, Sainz controlled the pace, while Leclerc was asked by Ferrari to hold the group behind and create a safe five-second gap to his teammate up front, to avoid the risk of Sainz jumping the line.

Leclerc failed to deliver on much of what his team asked him to do. The gap between the two leaders was held at around one second for the first 10 laps, then only gradually narrowed to around three seconds. But Leclerc did help Sainz considerably after the safety car was deployed on lap 20. Leclerc held the pace well on that lap, keeping the remaining cars behind him, and Sainz had a nine-second gap just before his first pit stop at the end of that lap.

Leclerc's sacrifice helped Sainz, who returned to the lead, but left Leclerc vulnerable. The Monaco driver fell behind Russell, Norris and Hamilton before he was able to get back on track as Ferrari had to keep Leclerc in the pits to avoid a safety hazard as a series of cars passed through Ferrari's pits.

When the safety car withdrew, Sainz was leading ahead of Verstappen - who had moved up to second after not changing tyres when the safety car appeared. Red Bull waited for the second safety car to appear before pitting, but the world champion's old hard tyres left him with a huge gap in pace and he was quickly attacked and passed by a number of drivers.

Russell, now behind Sainz, told his team that he noticed the Ferrari driver was keeping pace to save tyres in case Mercedes made another change to the new medium tyres that only the German team had saved for the race.

When Esteban Ocon's Alpine crashed and had to stop at the pit lane exit on lap 43, a virtual safety car was declared. Mercedes took the opportunity to call both Russell and Hamilton back for a second pit stop to switch to the new medium tyres, as Ferrari had predicted. Russell returned to the track in fourth place, just 15 seconds behind Leclerc, with Hamilton in fifth.

With a huge advantage on the new medium tyres, the Mercedes duo continued to accelerate and soon caught up with the cars ahead. Russell overtook Leclerc on lap 54, then started to close in and catch Norris, with Sainz ahead. Hamilton was also right behind his team-mate and seemed to have even better pace.

With five laps to go, Sainz deliberately slowed down to close the gap, allowing Norris to use his DRS wing to defend against the pressure from the Mercedes duo. On lap 59, Russell edged ahead of Norris at Turn 16, but the McLaren driver read his intentions and defended successfully, holding on to second place on the exit.

Russell never had the strength to attack again, and even had the misfortune of driving his W14 straight into the wall at Turn 10 on the final lap. Sainz, Norris and Hamilton cruised to the finish line with a gap of just over a second between them.

"It's a sad result after such a great performance," said a tearful Russell after the race. "Qualifying was good, the race was exciting, we stuck to our aggressive strategy, but I feel like I let my team-mates down. It's tough but we'll be back."

In contrast to Ferrari and Mercedes, Red Bull did not have the race they wanted. Disadvantaged early in practice and qualifying, Verstappen started the race on hard tyres, hoping to get a long run on his starting tyres and overtake the cars in front when they stopped for tyres. The Dutchman went from 11th to eighth in the opening few laps, before being caught in a battle between Alonso and Ocon.

Verstappen (running second) was stuck in the crowd in the back group because he did not have a good starting position. Photo: F1

Verstappen jumped into second behind Sainz after not changing tyres during the safety car on lap 20. The defending champion would have been in the lead had Leclerc not slowed so much. But the early tyre gap saw Verstappen fall behind and when he pitted for fresh tyres on lap 40, the Red Bull ace dropped to 15th.

But Verstappen remained patient, passing the slower cars ahead on fresher tyres. As the race drew to a close, the RB19 put pressure on Leclerc, but there was no time to attack. In fifth, Verstappen now leads teammate Sergio Perez by 151 points in the drivers’ standings, meaning the Dutchman will not be crowned world champion at the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka next weekend.

Singapore Grand Prix Results

Rank on one's own	Racer	Team	Location start	Number of tire changes	Fastest individual lap	Achievements	Point
1	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	1	1	1 minute 37.666 seconds	1 hour 46 minutes 37.418 seconds	25
2	Lando Norris	McLaren	4	1	1:38,046	+0.812 seconds	18
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	5	2	1:35,867	+1,269	16
4	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	3	1	1:38,275	+21,177	12
5	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	11	1	1:36,575	+21,441	10
6	Pierre Gasly	Alpine	12	1	1:38,277	+38,441	8
7	Oscar Piastri	McLaren	17	1	1:38,492	+41,479	6
8	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	13	1	1:37,108	+54,534	4
9	Liam Lawson	AlphaTauri	10	1	1:39,028	+65,918	2
10	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	6	2	1:38,107	+72,116	1
11	Alexander Albon	Williams	14	2	1:37,342	+73,417
12	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo	19	2	1:39,316	+83,649
13	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas	9	1	1:39,923	+86,201
14	Logan Sargeant	Williams	18	2	1:38,531	+86,889
15	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	7	2	1:36,456	+87,603
16	George Russell	Mercedes	2	2	1:36,273	Abandon the race
17	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	16	1	1:38,075	Abandon the race
18	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	8	1	1:39,930	Abandon the race
19	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	15		-	Abandon the race

+) Fastest-lap: 1 minute 35.867 seconds set by Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) at lap 47.

Individual scoreboard after 15 stages

Rank on one's own	Racer	Team	Point
1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	374
2	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	223
3	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	170
4	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	180
5	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	142
6	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	123
7	George Russell	Mercedes	109
8	Lando Norris	McLaren	97
9	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	47
10	Pierre Gasly	Alpine	45
11	Oscar Piastri	McLaren	42
12	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	36
13	Alexander Albon	Williams	21
14	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas	9
15	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	6
16	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo	4
17	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	3
18	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	3
19	Liam Lawson	AlphaTauri	2
20	Logan Sargeant	Williams
21	Nyck de Vries	AlphaTauri
22	Daniel Ricciardo	AlphaTauri

Team standings after 15 races

Rank on one's own	Team	Point
1	Red Bull	597
2	Mercedes	289
3	Ferrari	265
4	Aston Martin	217
5	McLaren	139
6	Alpine	81
7	Williams	21
8	Haas	12
9	Alfa Romeo	10
10	AlphaTauri	5