Charles Leclerc carried the higher minimum speed through 8 of the 12 braked corners at Marina Bay. On the 3 short straights between them, the Red Bull finished 6 to 9 km/h quicker.
Four metres. That is the road between Verstappen’s pole lap and Leclerc’s at the 263 km/h they crossed the line, less than the length of either car. In time it is 0.054, a 1:31.373 against a 1:31.427. The pole was the 50th of Verstappen’s career, and Marina Bay had never given him one before.
The two laps were not run side by side. Verstappen’s came on his first Q3 run, and his second did not improve on it. Leclerc’s came on his last, more than two tenths better than his own first attempt, on a track the live coverage said appeared to be slowing. The trace cannot measure the track. It can measure the cars.
Split the lap at its two timing lines and it changes hands twice. Verstappen leaves sector one 0.023 up. Leclerc takes 0.130 out of the middle sector and reaches the second split 0.107 ahead. Then the last sector hands Verstappen 0.161, and the order at the line is settled.
S1 · VER 27.002 · LEC 27.025 · +0.023 Verstappen
S2 · VER 38.531 · LEC 38.401 · +0.130 Leclerc
S3 · VER 25.840 · LEC 26.001 · +0.161 Verstappen
Net 0.054 to Verstappen. His first and third sectors were the fastest of Q3.
Sector three on its own is worth almost three times the margin that stands at the line. It is also the shortest of the three on the clock, under 26 seconds against 27 and 38. Verstappen was faster through it than anyone. Among the 7 quickest qualifiers, 4 went through it faster than Leclerc.
So the question has a shape before it has an answer. What did Leclerc have through the middle sector that he did not have at the end?
Leclerc reached the second split ahead. Three stops later, he was second.
A speed trace can cross-examine a gearbox before it says anything about a lap. Divide engine speed by road speed at full throttle, gear by gear, and the gearing falls out. From fourth to eighth the Ferrari turns 0.6 to 2.5 per cent fewer revolutions for every km/h than the Red Bull. In third it is the other way, by 1.4. Third to eighth rest on at least 7 clean samples a car, and sixth and seventh on 29 or more.
Where each driver changes gear is a larger difference. On the long run from Turn 5 to Turn 7, Verstappen is in eighth by 1,361 metres, at 296 km/h. Leclerc holds seventh for more than another 100 metres and changes up at 302. On the short run from Turn 9 to Turn 10 the Red Bull takes seventh at 268. The Ferrari stays in sixth all the way to the braking zone.
Then the straights themselves. Leave aside the run across the line, which belongs to two laps, and 5 runs are long enough to call straights. 3 are short, between 250 and 400 metres. 2 are long, 670 and 574 metres. The peaks sort themselves by length.
Peak speed, km/h · VER v LEC
Short · Turn 3 to 5 · 261 v 255 · Turn 9 to 10 · 282 v 273 · Turn 13 to 14 · 292 v 284
Long · Turn 5 to 7 · 308 v 308 · Turn 14 to 16 · 302 v 303
On the short runs the Red Bull is 6 to 9 km/h quicker at the top. On the long runs the two cars finish within 1 km/h of each other, and on the run to Turn 16 the Ferrari is a fraction ahead. The longer the road, the closer they come.
The obvious explanation sits in the regulations. Below 290 km/h a car in normal mode is permitted the full 350 kW of electrical power. Above 290 the permitted figure falls by 5 kW for every km/h, to 290 kW at 302 and 260 kW at 308. The short runs end at or below 292, where both cars were entitled to all of it or nearly all. The long runs end where both were entitled to less.
It does not survive the trace. Match the two cars for speed, between 260 and 280 km/h, and the Red Bull gains speed faster on the short runs. On the long runs, at those same speeds, it does not. The power permitted at 270 km/h is the same on every straight of the lap, so the taper cannot be what separates them. The trace records what each car did, not why. Gearing, drag, wing level and the corner before each run all arrive in the same number at the end of the straight, and a speed trace cannot pull them apart.
The longer the straight, the closer the two cars finished. On the short ones, the Red Bull was up to 9 km/h clear.
Sector three at Marina Bay is short on the clock and short on corners. It starts 18 metres before the braking zone for Turn 14 and runs about 1,480 metres to the line. It holds 3 stops, at Turns 14, 16 and 18, and a lift at Turn 17. Verstappen took 0.161 out of it.
It opens in the sector before. The Turn 13 hairpin is the slowest point on the lap, and both cars reach the same 63 km/h at the bottom of it. Leclerc is back at full throttle 59 metres after his apex, Verstappen 77 metres after his. 300 metres on, each car reads 270. Then, in the last 120 metres before the brakes, both in seventh gear, the Red Bull gains 22 km/h and the Ferrari 14. Verstappen reaches the Turn 14 braking zone at 292 km/h, Leclerc at 284.
Turns 14 and 16 are the two largest stops on the lap, and Turn 14 is close to level. Leclerc’s minimum is 90 km/h to Verstappen’s 89, both in second gear. Verstappen is back at full throttle 56 metres after his apex, Leclerc 68 metres after his. 100 metres past their apexes they read 187.5 and 187.9. The 8 km/h the Red Bull brought into the corner did not come out of it. Neither did the Ferrari’s higher minimum.
The run to Turn 16, the second-longest at full throttle, is level too. Verstappen peaks at 302, Leclerc at 303.
At Turn 16 the pattern of the whole lap breaks. It is the only braked corner of the 12 where Verstappen carries the higher minimum speed. He takes it in third gear at 109 km/h. Leclerc goes down to second, and his minimum is 103.
Turn 16 · minimum speed · VER 109 km/h, third gear · LEC 103 km/h, second gear
The only braked corner of 12 where Verstappen’s minimum is higher.
Leclerc said afterwards that he had made mistakes on the lap, and that the car had been pulling under braking through the session. The trace cannot say which corner he meant. It can say that Turn 16 is where his lap looks least like the rest of it.
It does not last long. Through the Turn 17 kink the roles swap again. Verstappen lifts to 7 per cent throttle. Leclerc holds his foot at 52 per cent. 100 metres past the Turn 16 apex they read 168 and 166. On the brief run to Turn 18 the Red Bull peaks 6 km/h higher, 257 to 251. Leclerc is 1 km/h quicker at the apex and 2 quicker across the line, at 265.
Put the sector together and most of what the trace can measure cleanly comes out level, or in Leclerc’s favour by 1 or 2 km/h. Three things do not. The 8 km/h Verstappen carried into Turn 14, the 6 km/h he carried through the bottom of Turn 16, and the 6 km/h he reached at the end of the run to Turn 18.
The 0.161 is a timing figure. The trace places it around those three points and can go no finer. In this sector the Ferrari matched the Red Bull on the one long straight, and matched or beat it at every apex but one. It lost the sector at the ends of the short runs and at the bottom of Turn 16.
Of 12 braked corners, Verstappen carried the higher minimum through only 1. It sat in the last sector.
The case for Leclerc is written at the bottom of the corners. 12 times on the lap both drivers use the brake pedal. At 8 of them the Ferrari carries the higher minimum speed. At 3 the cars are level. At 1, Turn 16, the Red Bull is quicker.
Minimum speed, km/h · LEC v VER
T1 138 v 133 · T5 149 v 144 · T7 123 v 118 · T9 133 v 130
T10 140 v 138 · T11 112 v 111 · T14 90 v 89 · T18 197 v 196
Level · T3 89 v 89 · T8 77 v 77 · T13 63 v 63 · Verstappen higher · T16 103 v 109
Half of those 8 margins are 1 or 2 km/h, close to what the samples can resolve. The other half are not. At Turns 1, 5 and 7 Leclerc is 5 km/h up, and at Turn 9 he is 3 up. At Turns 7 and 11 he takes the apex a gear lower than Verstappen, in second where the Red Bull is in third.
6 of the 12 corners sit in sector two: Turns 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 13. Leclerc is quicker at 4 of them and level at the other 2. That is the sector he took by 0.130. Among the 7 quickest qualifiers, only Hamilton and Piastri went through it faster. A higher minimum is time won where the car is slowest, and where every km/h is worth the most. It does not have to last to count.
It does not last. Take each car 100 metres past its own apex and compare. Of the corners where Leclerc had the higher minimum and the next braking zone is far enough away to measure, there are 6. At none of them, 100 metres later, is the Ferrari more than 0.4 km/h quicker. Turns 5, 9, 14 and 18 come out within 2 km/h. At Turn 7 the Red Bull is 5.5 km/h up, and at Turn 11 it is 10 up.
So the speed Leclerc carried to the apex stayed at the apex. It bought him sector two, corner by corner. It never became speed on the road that followed.
Verstappen’s lap is built the other way. He gives up a few km/h at the bottom of most corners and is level or ahead again within 100 metres. Then, on the short runs, he finishes 6 to 9 km/h quicker. The middle sector is 6 corners with short runs between them, and there the corners weighed more. The last sector has 3 stops and opens on the end of a short run. There the arithmetic went the other way, by 0.161.
The Ferrari’s speed at the apex was worth time where it happened. 100 metres later, there was almost none of it left.
Saturday asked for one lap, each car alone with the road. Sunday asks 62 times, and Leclerc starts beside Verstappen on the front row. They arrive 1 point apart, Leclerc on 197 points and Verstappen on 196, fourth and fifth in the championship, with the Sprint classification still provisional. Hamilton and Antonelli qualified third and fourth.
A race changes which half of a lap a driver can use. Leclerc’s advantage is the higher minimum. Close behind another car, the front of a car loses some of the air it works with, and speed through the middle of a corner is usually the first thing to go. Every corner where the Ferrari was quicker on Saturday becomes a corner where it may have to run in a Red Bull’s wake on Sunday, and the middle sector has 6 of them in about 1,800 metres.
Verstappen’s advantage needs nothing from the car behind. It lives on the short runs into Turns 10 and 14, where Leclerc arrived 9 and 8 km/h slower. A car in front does not need the corners to defend those runs. It needs to leave the corner level and stay flat.
The regulations offer the chaser one tool. A car within 1 second at the detection point is entitled to override mode on the following lap. Override holds the full 350 kW of permitted electrical power to 337.5 km/h, where normal mode begins to taper at 290. On the long runs, where both cars passed 300, that entitlement is worth something. On the short runs it is worth almost nothing. They end at 292 or below, where normal mode already permits 340 kW or more. The extra is 10 kW at most, and only in the last metres before Turn 14.
So the routes are uneven. Leclerc’s way to the Red Bull runs through the corners, and the corners are where following costs the most. Verstappen’s way to stay in front runs along the straights where override reaches least. Marina Bay has a habit of settling the order in the pit lane and behind the safety car rather than on the road. If it settles it on the road this time, the question is narrow.
Can a car whose advantage lives at the apex use it from second place, in another car’s air, for 62 laps? Or do the 8 and 9 km/h on the short runs, which no regulation hands back to the car behind, decide it before the corners can?
On Sunday the Ferrari’s advantage has to work in another car’s wake. The Red Bull’s only has to work in front.
“The data remembers what the drivers forgot. It always does.”
Verstappen took the pole by 0.054 while giving away the middle sector, and won the race without ever leaving a 0.755 window. He led all 62 laps and was quicker on the medium than on the soft. The only unsettled question all afternoon belonged to the car that started third and finished sixth.
Series II · Purple SectorA time set with a whole run of Q3 still to come has to do something harder than be fast. It has to stay fast while everyone else tries again.
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