From holding a narrow lead on-track to erasing one in the standings, Nico Rosberg got exactly what he wanted on Sunday.
Four races after surrendering the championship lead to teammate Lewis Hamilton, Rosberg leaves Marina Bay at the front of the pack once more after taking a narrow victory over Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo that could have very well ended in disaster.
Having dominated the time sheets all weekend, Rosberg was nearly caught out by a flurry of late pit stops that caused his lead to evaporate. While Rosberg elected to take a set of softs 27 laps to the end, the decision by third and fourth-placed Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen to pit with 15 laps to go freed second-placed Ricciardo to do the same. On fresh super-softs, Rosberg’s only saving-grace was the length of the race, holding just a narrow 0.488 second lead at the chequered flag.
His third race win in a row, Rosberg once again leads the drivers’ championship. Read on for a look at that, and all the other fallout from the 2016 Singapore Grand Prix.
Meet the new leader. Same as the old leader. Sort of.
Having seen his substantial lead at the top of the driver’s standings disappear by Hungary, everything we’d seen of the rivalry between Nico Rosberg and teammate Lewis Hamilton said his chances of getting it back were markedly slim. Without the reliability woes that had plagued him in the season’s early races, Hamilton had simply out-drove the German, erasing a 43-point lead by the summer break. On even terms, it was the same fight as 2014 and especially 2015 – a small, but generally consistent edge to Hamilton that had seen him win two world titles. Now three races into 2016’s second semester, it’s clear this season will not be the same story.
If his victory at Monza was a sign Rosberg was ready to take the fight to Hamilton, Singapore was Rosberg showing his capability of winning it. Coming into the weekend the Marina Bay circuit was supposedly the one track Mercedes would face a legitimate challenge from other teams, but you couldn’t tell that looking at Rosberg. He dominated qualifying by half a second, and was only challenged in the race by his team’s decision not to pit when Ricciardo did. You could almost forget Singapore was something of a bogeyman track for the Silver Arrows, at least until you saw Hamilton, whose struggles to P3 in qualy and the race served to remind us why it was Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel who took the victory here last year. The contrast was stark, and coupled with its context in the season as a whole, it was the best victory of Rosberg’s career – he was at the top of his game, and Hamilton simply had no answer for it.
So with six races to go, the Rosberg-Hamilton rivalry enters very unfamiliar territory, as while this isn’t the first time Rosberg has led the championship, it is the first time you can sense an air of confidence that makes you think: he can really do this. An eight-point lead with six races to go certainly isn’t going to decide anything, but it does put the outcome in his hands, and with the way he’s driving, there’s a very good chance he holds onto it.
It’s safe to say Daniil Kvyat has had his fair share of disappointment in 2016 – on Sunday, the Russian had plenty to smile about.
His best finish since being unceremoniously dumped from the Red Bull senior team, Kvyat was back in the spotlight for all the right reasons in Singapore, all while exacting a bit of revenge in the process.
At one of the few tracks where the 2015-Ferrari-engined STR11 remains competitive, Kvyat was able to extract the maximum on his way to a ninth-place finish that saw him involved in a spirited duel with the man who replaced him at Red Bull, Max Verstappen. Their duel from lap 19 was arguably the highlight of the race, as Verstappen couldn’t find a way past Kvyat, repeatedly snaking alongside only to see the door slammed on corner exit. It wasn’t until lap 49 that Verstappen would find his way past, but by then the Russian had done more than enough to demonstrate the ability that got him a promotion to begin with – and while it probably earned Kvyat no favours from Red Bull, it was exactly what he needed.
Speaking post-race Kvyat acknowledged as much, saying recent races have been a “test of my passion”, but his ability to keep Verstappen behind for as long as he did “makes me think I’m pretty good”. The truth is Kvyat is “pretty good”, perhaps not Verstappen-quality, but certainly better than the driver he was at Red Bull early in the year. Kvyat probably knows his time in the Red Bull stable – even if extended through 2017 – is running out, and him showing such fight can only help his career prospects as well as his sanity. His hopes of staying in the sport long-term probably rest with the sort of backing once given to compatriots Vitaly Petrov and fellow youngster Sergey Sirotkin, which are entirely within the realm of possibility – it can’t hurt that in one of his few chances to shine, his star was at its brightest.
It’s official: F1 has a new boss. Next stop: the 21st century.
In a deal that will see US-based Liberty Media acquire a controlling stake in Formula 1 from private equity group CVC Capital Partners, the sport is set for a new “F1 Supremo” as Liberty's Chase Carey takes the position of chairman. And while Bernie Ecclestone says he has been asked to stay on for three more years, Carey’s appointment is certainly cause for optimism in a sport that has been characterised in recent times by its glacial progress in adapting to new forms of digital media.
The hope is that Carey, who looks like the illegitimate child of Colonel Sanders and Mr. Monopoly, will be as dynamic a figure as his appearance suggests. A long-time member of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation media empire, Carey is about as in-the-know when it comes to the contemporary state of media and content distribution as we could’ve realistically hoped to get in an F1 executive, and boy do we need it.
It’s no secret that F1’s TV viewership numbers have been sinking for the past decade, and with a wider move towards “cord cutting” among younger demographics that’s not going to change. However, Carey’s early remarks on investing in digital platforms show at least an awareness in the media landscape beyond immediate TV contracts. F1 already lags behind many of sports the American Carey is well versed with (particularly the big four US leagues) in their offering of an online-based, direct-subscription model, and hopefully this is rectified in the near future.
On the politics side, the first move Carey is rumoured to be making is to sell shares in the sport to the teams itself, which would be an excellent step in the right direction. Teams need to have a vested interest in the sport itself, not just their place in it, and making the likes of Ferrari partners with smaller teams like Force India can only foster that needed unity.
At least for the first 100 days, don’t expect anything to change as Carey “listens, meets and digests” in acclimatising to his new role, but with a professed desire to grow F1 long-term, things could start to change as early as this offseason. Maybe this is all wishful thinking, and F1 has replaced one out-of-touch executive with another, but at the very least, the flamboyance of that moustache has got me dreaming.
Is this the best win of Rosberg’s career so far? Has Kvyat done enough to earn himself a drive outside Red Bull? Is Chase Carey the right man for Formula 1? Sound off in the comments below.
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