There are few sports on Earth where competitors are active for as long a sustained period as they are in motorsport.
One cricket test match may take place over five days, but the ball is only ‘live’ for a handful of seconds at a time. The players on the pitch spend the vast majority of time waiting for the next ball or in the pavilion, watching.
Footballers may have to play for 90 minutes split into two halves of 45 minutes, but even they get to catch their breath when the ball is out of play. American footballers get 40 seconds of respite in between plays. Ice hockey’s 60 minutes are broken up into three 20-minute periods with plenty of breaks in play to regroup or change lines.
In motorsport, drivers don’t have that luxury. Especially in Formula 1. From the moment the lights go out until the second they take the chequered flag, F1 drivers are ‘in play’ for the full 305-plus-a-bit kilometres. Aside from the possible interruptions of a red flag, Safety Car or Virtual Safety Car, there’s no moment of respite.
With the sheer skill and elite ability demonstrated by the 20 drivers on the grid each and every race weekend, it’s easy to forget what a feat of concentration and consistency for drivers to complete a grand prix without making a single race-ending error over what can be more than 1,000 corners. That is, until they arrive at a circuit like Singapore.
The Marina Bay circuit may have trimmed four turns from its five-kilometre layout last year, but it remains arguably the greatest test of endurance drivers face all season. Not just for the 19 corners of its lap around genuine city streets, but for the oppressive raw heat, energy-sapping humidity and extreme length, with races regularly running up to the two-hour time limit.
Simply put, this is the longest night of the F1 season.
McLaren’s Lando Norris prepared himself for one of the toughest tests he would face all year long having put himself in the best possible position to do by taking pole position the previous night. The driver he is trying to chase down in the championship, Max Verstappen, sat one place behind him, just as he had the last time the pair shared the front row together in Zandvoort. But while the world champion was more than happy to be second given the McLaren’s perceived superiority, he knew he would have taken pole had he matched his best time from Q2.
Behind the season’s two main protagonists sat Lewis Hamilton, leading an all-Mercedes second row. Oscar…
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