Boredom Won the Singapore GP: Ferrari

Ferrari declared “boredom the winner” of Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix after the team lost more ground in the race for both Formula 1 championships in 2018 to the rival Mercedes team.

F1 drivers’ title contender Sebastian Vettel had a difficult race that saw Ferrari pit him early to try and get the jump on race leader Lewis Hamilton, only for the German to instead lose a place of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, leaving him a lonely third for much of the race.

With Hamilton sweeping to his fourth victory in five races, Vettel slipped 40 points behind in the drivers’ championship with six races to go, while Ferrari now sits 37 points behind Mercedes in the constructors’ standings after Kimi Raikkonen could only finish fifth in the sister Ferrari car.

Ferrari sent out its post-race press release entitled “boredom the winner in Singapore,” the team focused on the lack of action in the race as the top six drivers all finished in the positions they started in.

“The Singapore race ran true to form, in that in the Monaco of the East, anything can happen, but usually nothing does,” the released opened.

“Sebastian made it to the podium in third spot and Kimi was fifth, meaning Scuderia Ferrari finished where it started. It was a shame, because the start had let us hope for better, but Seb had to deal with traffic, which partly compromised what was an aggressive strategy.”

The aggressive strategy had seen Vettel pit off the Hypersofts early and take on Ultrasofts, which he doubted would get to the end without requiring another stop, only for the German to pull off the strategy as originally planned.

The scenario means that Vettel must now win every single race remaining to stay in control of his own destiny in the drivers’ championship due to the gap to Hamilton. However, the chance of Hamilton having a couple of poor weekends, is unlikely.

Some would call this a case of sour grapes and the team would remain quiet if Sebastian Vettel had won.