At last, we have our answer to the almost-season-old question: will Red Bull win every race this season? If you’ve somehow missed the headline and the cover, here it is for the avoidance of doubt – it’s a definitive ‘no’.
Even the ardent Max Verstappenites in the Netherlands were beginning to struggle to muster the requisite enthusiasm for the Dutchman’s continued spell of dominance. Many had spent the Italian Grand Prix two weeks prior hoping for parallels to the last time a seemingly unbeatable Formula 1 team was felled in its efforts to win every race in a season: the 1988 edition of the race at Monza looked to be another occasion where McLaren’s allconquering MP4/4 continued its streak, before Ayrton Senna’s victory was derailed by a clash with Williams substitute Jean-Louis Schlesser.
Thirty-five years on, glimmers of a Ferrari resurgence at home – where Carlos Sainz battled valiantly against Verstappen – gave way to the looming sense of inevitability when the reigning champion’s pass for the lead was only a matter of time. There was no Schlesser-esque figure that day, and Verstappen claimed the outright record for consecutive wins with 10 in a row. But that’s where the streak ends, as Sainz repaid the favour from Monza to vanquish the field in Singapore’s tense and tactical encounter.
It was, admittedly, a slow burner at Marina Bay. Concerns over tyre degradation and the desire to make a one-stop strategy work thrust the field into lockstep, with few willing to risk sinking a single iota of tyre life into a doomed effort to pass. That suited Sainz just fine, of course, as Ferrari decided to play the management game very early. It knew it could not necessarily compete on pure race
