FLOYD ON F1: Perez masterclass in Singapore one for the ages

Sergio Perez’s victory at the Singapore F1 Grand Prix last weekend demonstrated his enormous talent as he controlled the race from start to finish.

Second on the grid alongside pole sitter Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, the Mexican known as “Checo” powered his Red Bull into the lead before turn one. He then held off the hard charging Monegasque, with some excellent defensive driving, which earned him the F1 TV commentators accolade as “Minister of Defence”.

It was an interesting race, somewhat marred by a penalty situation pending for Perez, following two alleged infringements for not staying within 10 car lengths of the Safety Car during a race restart.

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It was some three hours after the race when he received a five-second penalty and a reprimand for the two incidents, but he retained victory by 2.595 seconds from Leclerc.

The most interesting aspect of the race was the plight besetting reigning F1 world champion Max Verstappen, resulting in his lowly eighth grid position.

Then a poor start, dropped him to 12th overall and he had a hard fight ahead. Particularly as this was a wet race which started more than hour late due to heavy rain, which meant very slippery surfaces.

With the delayed start, plus Virtual Safety Car and full Safety Car interventions, the race could not run its full 61 laps, but would be governed by the maximum time allowed for the race.

It ended with just 59 laps recorded. But it was at the end of lap 42 I realised I had just witnessed some brave and calculated moves as drivers overtook.

The race director had deemed it a wet race from the start and consequently there was no DRS as conditions were considered unsafe. The F1 Drag Reduction System (DRS), with its movable ring wing flap, was disabled. It only came into play on lap 43.

Yet I had watched overtaking and an absence of the so-called DRS train, where cars follow each other and everyone, except the car ahead, are within one second of each other and deploy DRS.

But as they all do it, a veritable queue of competitors occurs, with most unable to take advantage of the decreased drag.

Surely this tells us the new aerodynamic packages are working, allowing close following distances and consequently slipstreaming the car ahead, gaining speed and completing unaided passing manoeuvres.
So is it not time to review the DRS concept?

It has been with us for 11 years, and many feel it is an incredibly artificial means of F1 racing. The human brain and the driver’s skills should be the deciding factor on track.

Very few of my colleagues and friends have ever accepted DRS, and believe its influence on race results is a biased result.

With DRS, the driver ahead is always disadvantaged. Ahead of him is just free air, so he cannot employ such mechanically controlled assistance.

All the better reason to laud Sergio Perez’s race-long defence of the lead.

To see the 2022 F1 driver’s standings, click here.