Max Verstappen's Focus Shifts to Japan

Max Verstappen's anticipated second world drivers championship title attempt will now shift base to Japan. The Singapore Grand Prix was challenging, following a contentious qualifying. His teammate, Sergio Perez, though, had a near flawless race to finish on top yet again in the battle for domination on street circuits.

When Max Verstappen stepped out of his car at the end of the qualifying night in Singapore, he was not a happy man. Far from it. His 25th birthday weekend was not going as planned. If he had hoped to close in on his second consecutive world drivers championship, which would have required a significant amount of help from Ferrari's bungling ways this season, he did not feel a tad closer.

Two aborted laps, two laps that held the potential to place him at the front grid for Sunday's street race, and Verstappen was livid as heard over the car radio. "What the f***! What the f*** are you saying?," he yelled over the car radio. Later, he remained indignant that he had as much right to criticise the team as Red Bull held the right to criticise him if he made errors on the track.

Verstappen's indignation was legitimate, and given how Red Bull were placed in the constructors' championship, one would think they had accounted for the amount of fuel to put on board Max's car during qualifying as the rain affected track was drying out and becoming quicker. As cars chose to stay out in Q3 on Saturday, which made tyre change and refuelling impossible, it seemed Max's to-the-limit 6 laps had caused the minimum 1 litre fuel sample, as required by the FIA, to reach a critical juncture. It was either Max taking a penalty and starting at the back of the race despite a great qualification or following the team orders and returning to the pit garage.

Any other team might have been quietly praised for having the presence of mind. But given how astute Red Bull have been on the pit wall when it comes to strategy, this was a glaring blip and unacceptable when the driver was allowed to come within inches of potentially posting the best lap time of the night.

Qualifying in eighth position on a hard street circuit was not what Max had in mind. But then over the course of the summer break, before and after, Max showed remarkable versatility and composure to even find himself finishing on top even when the grid qualification was not supportive of such results.

In fact, his nearest rival, Ferrari's Charles Leclerc who is well over 100 points behind, admitted as much in a recent interview that he knew his championship aspirations were over as he saw Verstappen pull himself from nearly the backend of the grid courtesy engine penalties and still win the race in Belgium at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit.

This was not down to the wire like last season. But it was going to be a test of Max's patience. Title contenders have time to time thrown a little teaser his way, keeping the game ever so open even with Max's substantial lead on the leaderboard. Meanwhile, there were others who were coming within a whisker of past success but falling out against Max.

Max's team mate Sergio Perez finished second on Saturday. This should have given the Mexican some fillip given how his championship rivalry almost fell apart towards the latter half of this season. Lewis Hamilton has had a year turn on its head, from writing himself and his car off, and at times even his team, to finding himself regularly banking close to the edge of glory though nowhere close enough to stake a claim to a record eighth world championship.

The one man looking for the greatest redemption was arguably the Monegasque driver who once again struck gold on Saturday. Although Leclerc has had a dozen of those this season, they have not been enough to give the young driver the entitlement to go all the way to what would have been his first world drivers championship title.

Too many botched Ferrari decisions in the pit, driver errors and the collapse of the system, has meant that Ferrari have largely flattered to deceive this season. At a time when Ferrari could have made Red Bull pay for some reliability issues, they have instead been made to eat dirt.

On pay issues, Red Bull had a fight on their hands, and it would not be done by the end of the race weekend. Amidst on track shenanigans, Red Bull were fighting off Mercedes and Ferrari accusing them of being one of two teams under the radar over exceeding budget cap costs. This contention would not be settled until the middle of the week, though it did overshadow the action on Singapore's busy but tight street circuit.

The Marina Bay circuit proved to be a tricky one come Sunday. The race was delayed by well over an hour over thunderstorms, and by the time it began, the drivers were beginning to feel as if the race was never ending. The drained drivers at the end of the over two-hour race said it all. The attrition driven race was not only taking drivers out of contention but also, putting a few in the tail spin, not even sparing the club of champions including Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton.

The race on intermediate tyres took the race deep as no team was willing to pit stop too early and gamble on slick. And when Mercedes did gamble with George Russell, it virtually ended the young Brit's race as the circuit barely dried around certain turns on the track.

Sergio Perez got off to a good start, taking the lead ahead of Charles Leclerc who was left chasing the Red Bull driver for the rest of the night. Verstappen couldn't get off to a flying start and looked circumspect at best, for the best part chasing the leaders from afar back.

Even when it seemed like he had closed in on the field, an aggressive move on McLaren's Lando Norris was there for the taking. But like the rest of the drivers, Verstappen had to take emergency evasive action not to end up in the barriers, putting him further behind the field. That said, for all his engagement, he still ended up amongst the modest of points finishing in a humbling seventh place that ended his run of winning five races on the trot.

It was hard to pick a winner apart from Perez on the night as the Mexican has had a tough time post the sterling performance in Monaco which at that time put his hat into the ring of potential rivals in Verstappen's path. He led the race from start to finish, the only problem that seemed to come in the way was the issue of the race stewards contentiously leaving out making a decision on the spot regarding Perez' position vis-à-vis the safety car. This was one of many contentions with both, the virtual safety car and safety car coming into play on more than one occasion.

While some called it rigged, and others another obvious shortcoming on the part of the FIA, Red Bull meanwhile not only anticipated the potential penalty but also gave Perez fair warning specifically to stretch his lead to the second placed driver, Leclerc, by more than five seconds. In the end it proved an easy enough job for Perez, who despite copping the penalty about maintaining the distance to the safety car, kept his top place on the podium hours after the adrenaline race took its toll on drivers and teams alike.