There are just 10 races left in the 2023 F1 calendar, and the race is headed for Singapore soon.

Photos: Singapore GP

SINGAPORE

Picking up where we left off in 2022, Formula 1 is returning to Singapore yet again for the 2023 season. From the 15th to 17th of September 2023, the Marina Bay Street circuit will illuminate the CBD cityscape as the cars and drivers make headway into Singapore for the Singapore Grand Prix.

It’s been an interesting season thus far, rife with driver changes and personnel changes. Nick De Vries has been ousted from the AlphaTauri F1 team in favour of Red Bull reserve driver Daniel Ricciardo. There’s been a massive shakeup as the top brass of the Alpine team have been shunned, including team principal Otmar Szafnauer. And Aston Martin is doing surprisingly well this season.

But it’s as the old adage goes; the more things seem to change, the more they stay the same. And that saying goes for the dominant force that is the Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team.

Max Verstappen, who has been dominant in the staggeringly quick Red Bull Racing RB19, has won 10 of the 12 races in the race calendar thus far. After his latest and (predictably) strong showing around Spa for the Belgian Grand Prix, he leads the world driver’s championship with 314 points. 

Trailing 125 points behind in the second place of the WDC is Max’s Red Bull tamale Sergio Perez (who won in Singapore last year) with 189 WDC points, the only man on the grid to beat Max Verstappen in this season – he won both of the races that Max lost out on. Combined, both drivers have amassed 503 points in the constructor’s championship. 

With the Dutch Grand Prix (Max’s home turf) coming at the end of August, the “Flying Dutchman” himself could have the longest winning streak in F1 with 9 race wins back to back, a record that matches Sebastian Vettel’s streak in 2013. Red Bull themselves have already clinched a record-breaking 13-win streak since Verstappen’s win in the final race of 2022 in Abu Dhabi. 

Lower down in the points standings list Fernando Alonso in 3rd place in the WDC with 149 points. The Spaniard has shown some impressive pace in the season thus far, racking up a 3rd pace finish in his debut race with Aston Martin. He went on to clinch 3 more 3rd place finishes and two 2nd place finishes, netting him 6 podium finishes out of the 12 races this season. While his pace seems to have tapered off since the Austrian GP, Alonso has still finished every race this season within the points. 

But his standing in the world driver’s championship will soon be contested by one Sir Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes-AMG F1 W14 E Performance – which has been massively improved over the W13 in 2022. Hamilton is currently 4th in the WDC standings, while teammate George Russell has 99 points under his belt. Through the efforts of Hamilton and Russel, the Mercedes team has 247 points in the constructor’s championship, ahead of Aston Martin and Ferrari.

Further back on the grid, former Formula E and F2 champion Nyck De Vries has been relieved of his seat at AlphaTauri, with the Red Bull sister team opting to put Daniel Ricciardo into the hot seat alongside Yuki Tsunoda. The axing of Nyck comes after Ricciardo’s performance in simulator runs and a fateful Pirelli tyre test earlier last month.

At this juncture in the championship, it’s a “when” and not an “if” Max Verstappen can claim his third world drivers championship. The question is how early can the reigning champ claim the title for 2023. 

Mathematically, there is a chance that he will win the WDC title as early as the Singapore Grand Prix, but that win is contingent on Sergio Perez falling outside of the points the next three races – which is incredibly unlikely. Only time will tell as the lights go out at the Singapore GP.

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