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Unpacking Singapore GP news: Daniel Ricciardo, rear wings and … swearing?

21 September 2024Last Update :
Unpacking Singapore GP news: Daniel Ricciardo, rear wings and … swearing?

Prime Tire Newsletter 🏁 | This is The Athletic’s twice-weekly F1 newsletter. Sign up here to receive Prime Tire directly in your inbox.

Welcome back to Prime Tire, where we’re wondering how Fernando Alonso discovered the “push to not crash” button combo on his steering wheel.

I thought that was a secret.

It’s Singapore GP week. It’s been busy. I’m Patrick, with Special Guest(s). Let’s get to it.

With a proper title fight underway in both championships, you’d think racing would lead the headlines at the Singapore GP. Alas.

We told you on Monday we expected some resolution this week about a brewing McLaren rear wing controversy. We got it – but not before a different controversy appeared out of nowhere. But first, the on-track drama …

McLaren’s rear wing drama, explained

McLaren’s rise to the top of the F1 standings has been growing for at least a year now. That wasn’t particularly surprising. What is surprising is how much faster Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris have been than their rivals.

Recently, eagle-eyed fans have spotted a peculiar element on the McLaren rear wing: at high-speed, the upper part flexes back, creating a mini-DRS element that improves straight-line speed. Here’s a helpful visual.

Ferrari and Red Bull noticed it, too, and lodged a complaint with the FIA. The FIA said that the design passed flexibility tests but asked McLaren to change it anyway—“This is standard practice from the FIA when it believes designs may go against the intention of the technical regulations, even while remaining legal,” Luke wrote today.

In other words, McLaren found a loophole. Contrary to some fans decrying this, I applaud it – F1 is different from other motorsports in that it rewards technical innovation. Teams locate the rulebook’s grey areas and attack them with new, genius ideas. (Remember, that’s how Brawn won the 2009 championship.) That’s F1.

Is it against the “spirit of the rules”? Oh, sure. That’s why it’s gone now. But I can’t fault McLaren for playing the game.

Please welcome the swear jar to F1?

And now we’re on to the unexpected drama of the week. The FIA wants to limit foul language broadcasted over team radios and news conferences. This has come up a few times in 2024 — Max Verstappen has been quite angry at times over the radio, and Yuki Tsunoda was fined for ableist language.

There were two flavors of irritated response from drivers on Thursday. Here’s one from Tsunoda:

💬 Obviously, there’s certain words that obviously will go above the limit. It happens to me this year, but yeah, it’s just like f-words or whatever. It’s just part of the part of the world that you express the feeling. So, I mean, I don’t I don’t see why there’s an issue. And yeah, it’s just I’m sure those even FIA people they swear sometimes.

Verstappen‘s response was spicier:

💬 (A delay) would help a lot more than putting bans on drivers because, for example, I couldn’t even say the f-word. I mean, it’s not even that bad, right? I mean, the car was not working, the car is f—ed, yeah. Excuse me for the language, but come on, what are we? Five-year-olds, six-year-olds?”

(Verstappen was punished for cursing in that response.)

The general gist from drivers is that this is a hard thing to police and probably not worth the FIA’s time to enforce. Both Verstappen and Norris pointed out they could simply stop broadcasting the team radios. But then where would we hear Verstappen giggle at a Williams rookie?

But wait, there’s more!

FIA president earns Hamilton’s ire

This swearing thing really kicked off  because of recent comments from FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem – comments that Lewis Hamilton called out for being “stereotypical.”

Here’s what Ben Sulayem said:

💬 “We’re not rappers, you know. They say the F-word how many times per minute? We are not on that. That’s them, and we are (us).”

What’s interesting is that Hamilton was one of the only drivers who agreed that vulgar radio messages are unnecessary. It was Ben Sulayem’s ‘choice of words’ that bothered Hamilton and opened up a new front in the debate this week. Read what Hamilton had to say here.

With more from Singapore, here’s Luke.

Inside the Paddock with Luke Smith

Singapore is one of my favorite races on the F1 calendar. The sport’s original night race, starting in 2008, holds a kind of magic that others still cannot emulate.

There are the usual topics that come up here. The adjustment to European hours, going to bed at 6 a.m. and rising just after lunch, and the lengths we go to stay up. The physicality of the F1 track makes drivers train in saunas. But this weekend has instead been dominated by two main topics: McLaren’s rear wing, which has been brewing since Monza, the other of which was nowhere near F1’s radar on arrival in Singapore.

I put the driver swearing topic to James Vowles and Fred Vasseur today. They agreed that in the heat of the moment, especially when a driver might feel that “someone has challenged your life,” as Vowles put it, it’s tough to expect them to be totally calm. Vasseur smiled when I reminded him of his fine for swearing at the FIA press conference in Las Vegas last year and joked that he probably wasn’t the best person to discuss the matter.

Is the swearing necessary? No. But there are few other sports in the world where we hear athletes’ thoughts and emotions amid intense competition, let alone with the same danger of F1. Surely, other topics deserve attention more than a bit of cursing.

Thanks, Luke. Before we go on, I want everyone to spare a good thought for Luke after his track run …

Friday practice notes

Any way you cut it, after Friday’s practices, Ferrari and McLaren looked like the class of the field.

Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc matched each other in FP1 and FP2 — the McLaren dominated in the slow-speed corners and straights, but Leclerc’s Ferrari wasn’t too far behind. Leclerc has begun flexing his legendary one-lap pace again (he took pole last weekend in Azerbaijan), so nobody would be surprised if he stars in qualifying today.

McLaren and Ferrari were 0.32s faster than any other team in qualifying trim during the first two sessions.

It’s clear that the other two top contenders, Red Bull and Mercedes, both have work left to do. Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez did not sound optimistic about their cars. According to F1-Tempo telemetry, the Red Bulls were slower in the corners than even the Saubers (F1’s last-placed team).

Two other teams we should keep an eye on are the Williams and RB cars. Alex Albon finished in the top ten in both practices despite not feeling comfortable with his new front suspension update. Meanwhile, Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo showed the pace to potentially start in the top ten tomorrow.

We’ll see. Qualifying on Saturday is FP3 at 5:30 a.m. ET, followed by qualifying at 9 a.m. ET. The grand prix is on Sunday at 8 a.m. ET. Expect rain!

And now, back to the paddock with an update on a big weekend for F1 Academy.

Inside the Paddock with Madeline Coleman

F1 Academy had its first qualifying session at night on Friday, and once again, Abbi Pulling secured double pole position. It was a close battle, the Alpine Academy driver trading times with Mercedes’ Doriane Pin and Ferrari’s Maya Weug as the session unfolded.

Pulling has been a force to be reckoned with this season. It looked like it would be a tight championship battle between her and Pin after they split the race wins in Jeddah, but Pulling began running away with the championship.

If Pulling continues this trajectory, the title could be wrapped up before the final round in Abu Dhabi. She needs a lead of 112 points or more by the conclusion of this weekend to take the championship, and right now, there is a 71-point gap between Pulling and Pin. That means Pulling needs to outscore Pin by 41 points in Singapore.

For those watching in the U.S. on ESPN+, Race 1 and Race 2 timings are pretty early. Race 1 is set for Saturday at 3:05 a.m. ET, while Race 2 is slated for Sunday at 3:35 a.m. ET.

Outside the Points

Kevin Magnussen is back from his one-race ban and has some things 👏 to 👏 say 👏 about F1’s penalty points system. (Hint: he’s not a fan.)

Bookmark this news: Daniel Ricciardo will find out after this weekend if he still has a seat at RB in 2025 – or, possibly, even the rest of the season. I’ll have more to say about Ricciardo next week.

And, finally, Verstappen’s race engineer got a promotion but will remain in the Red Bull driver’s ear.

Top photo: Joe Portlock/Getty Images

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