A widely-criticised change to Formula 1’s rules five years ago, combined with a long-standing quirk of team ownership, created a controversy last weekend which threatens to overshadow its championship fight.
Lando Norris’ championship destiny was in his hands heading into the Singapore Grand Prix. Prior to last weekend, if he took the best result available to him at every race, there was nothing Max Verstappen could do to stop him winning the title.
That is no longer the case, for reasons entirely unrelated to the performance of either driver. The fact that was possible points to a flaw in F1’s rules.
As the final laps counted down on Sunday, Norris was on course to score the bonus point for fastest lap. His lap of 1’34.925 on a 16-lap-old set of hard tyres was an impressive time, almost half a second quicker than the next-best effort of any other driver (Charles Leclerc, whose tyres were eight laps fresher). He took big risks to set it as well, brushing the barrier at turn 10 the lap before.
But with so little to separate the performance of F1’s teams these days (Singapore was the closest race of the season among the top nine outfits), the quickest driver at the head of the field is unlikely to lap quicker than a driver at the back who has pitted to fit a set of soft tyres.
The bonus point is only awarded to drivers who finish in the top 10. Therefore a driver running at the back of the field has no incentive to forfeit their running position to stick on a set of soft tyres and go for the fastest lap, besides their own amusement. Unsurprisingly, it seldom happens.
Why Ricciardo apparently chose to do so therefore inspired much conjecture. He was running well out of the points in what is widely believed to be his final F1 race. He did not ask to make an attempt at the fastest lap, but was told to pit with three laps remaining.
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Afterwards RB team principal Laurent Mekies, who had not previously indicated Ricciardo’s place at the team was in immediate danger, said: “Given this may have been Daniel’s last race, we wanted to give him the chance to savour it and go out with the fastest lap.”
However others, notably McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, found it suspicious that the sister team to Verstappen’s Red Bull squad should use one of its drivers to make an attempt on the fastest lap which…
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