Chapter 259 Good News and Bad News
In a replay, Ricciardo entered the pit lane before Wu Shi. By the time his car was already jacked up, Wu Shi had just stopped in his pit box.
And then, Wu Shi's four tyres were changed, and his car was on the ground, just as Ricciardo's car also landed.
With that delay, Wu Shi, who entered later, actually left first.
Subsequently, an overhead view showed Red Bull Racing's tyre change situation.
The other three wheels were changed very quickly, and even the rear jack was lowered ahead of time.
However, the front-left wheel was stuck, and the mechanic tried to loosen the wheel nut twice without success.
All the time was lost there.
"Wu Shi just gained a position for free!" Brother Bing chuckled.
"Yes, from the previous stint, tonight's overtaking difficulty is still very high. No one expected Red Bull to put on such a show for us," Brother Fei said with a laugh.
"Quite a few position changes happened during this pit stop window."
"Indeed, the drivers who pitted earlier all lost out, especially Kvyat, who is now behind the two Mercedes drivers."
"Let's look at everyone's tyre choices," Brother Bing said, seeing the graphic appear on the broadcast.
Currently, among the top ten drivers, only Hamilton, Rosberg, Pérez, and Nasr were using soft compound tyres.
All other drivers had switched to supersoft compound tyres.
"It seems Mercedes still hasn't solved the supersoft tyre temperature management issue."
"Is it possible they've adopted a new strategy, using soft tyres first, then supersoft tyres later?"
The track was still under Virtual Safety Car conditions, so the two had time to discuss this.
Under VSC conditions, on Lap 15, Massa pitted again for a tyre change due to damage from a collision.
Immediately after, a physical Safety Car replaced the Virtual Safety Car.
"Safety Car, Safety Car deployed. There's still a lot of debris at the pit exit, and marshals are clearing it. You need to be careful when you get there," Jonathan reminded.
"Copy."
For the next few laps, the Safety Car led the entire field.
Meanwhile, the incident involving Massa and Hülkenberg began to be investigated by the stewards.
Through multiple replays, it could be seen that this was not a collision caused by Massa squeezing Hülkenberg.
Because after coming out, Massa had no space on his left. This was entirely due to Hülkenberg closing in too aggressively.
In this situation, Massa was highly unlikely to be held responsible for anything.
On Lap 17, the lapped cars were allowed to unlap themselves.
This meant that track conditions were being restored, and the race was about to restart.
At the end of Lap 18, the Safety Car pulled into the pits, and the race was about to restart.
"Watch out for Ricciardo behind you," Jonathan warned just before the rolling start.
"I know."
Wu Shi was, of course, focusing on defending against the Australian driver.
However, he felt that as long as he didn't make a mistake, there was no chance of being overtaken.
Kvyat being stuck in the pack behind, unable to make progress, was enough to show that Red Bull was not outrageously strong in tonight's main race.
Sure enough, after the Safety Car went in, Vettel accelerated, then braked hard, and immediately accelerated again, pulling away at full speed.
This sudden action would make it impossible for the cars behind to respond and follow closely.
Wu Shi could only accelerate immediately after Vettel's hard brake and acceleration.
But the distance had already opened up.
Fortunately, with his sudden acceleration, Ricciardo also couldn't keep up very well.
Vettel led the charge across the control line, and the race officially restarted!
Overtaking would now be allowed.
The front-row drivers were all very close.
But just as the race restarted, Sainz's car had some issues, making it very difficult to shift gears from low to high.
The engine roar echoed continuously on the track. On Lap 19, Vettel pulled away from Wu Shi by 0.3 seconds.
After switching to new supersoft tyres, Vettel actually stopped pushing so aggressively.
"Lewis, we're sticking with a two-stop strategy. We need to make these soft tyres last a bit longer," Bono told Hamilton at this point.
"That's right, it has to be two stops," Brother Bing nodded.
"So it seems their idea is to switch to supersoft tyres later, using new against old? Supersoft against soft?" Brother Fei asked.
"Do they still have new soft tyres?" Brother Bing retorted.
"Hiss."
For the two commentators, who didn't broadcast much of the practice and qualifying sessions now, many data points weren't remembered very clearly.
Three laps after the race restarted, Vettel pulled away from Wu Shi by nearly 1 second.
And Wu Shi also extended his gap to Ricciardo to 0.8 seconds.
At the end of Lap 21, the Safety Car had been in for three laps, and DRS was re-enabled.
Jonathan reminded Wu Shi of the situation, but in reality, even with DRS, overtaking was very difficult.
Vettel led the entire way with lap times around 1 minute 52.4 seconds.
Wu Shi's lap times fluctuated between 52.5 and 52.7 seconds.
Ricciardo behind was actually consistently faster, almost matching Vettel.
But whenever he approached Wu Shi, wanting to attack, Wu Shi only needed to gently block the racing line, and the attack became difficult.
After all, the performance gap between their cars was not large enough for a clean overtake.
Especially on the straights, the FW37, after continuous targeted optimisation, was extremely fast.
The drivers continued to race, entangled with each other.
"Kimi, Wu Shi is blocking Ricciardo. The car situation is all normal now. You need to try to attack Ricciardo," Ferrari's team radio sounded.
However, despite being told so, Kimi found it very difficult to seize an opportunity.
On Lap 23, the investigation results for Hülkenberg and Massa came out: Hülkenberg would be penalised three grid positions in the next Grand Prix.
"Whoa! It really was Hülkenberg's fault."
"Of course, it was his fault!"
Brother Bing said as a matter of course:
"Look at Hülkenberg's racing line at the time; it was as if he was trying to crash into Massa."
At this moment, Hamilton's team radio sounded again: "Keep this pace up front, I can close in."
"OK, Vettel is driving slowly, Wu Shi is holding up Ricciardo, and Kimi is trying to gain Ricciardo's position," Bono told Hamilton.
The situation on the track had basically stabilised by now.
Vettel could quickly pull away, but what happened in the first stint showed that no matter how hard you pushed, if the Safety Car came out, everything would be for naught.
Therefore, Ferrari changed its strategy: Vettel might as well preserve his tyres, as Wu Shi couldn't catch him anyway.
And by driving slowly like this, Wu Shi's speed would also be reduced, which would then slow down Ricciardo.
This way, Kimi would have a chance to try and attack Ricciardo.
As long as Kimi overtook Ricciardo, then Vettel could further pressure Wu Shi, and then Kimi would have a chance to overtake Wu Shi.
Ferrari had a car advantage in Singapore and definitely wanted a one-two finish.
Wu Shi had noticed this situation long ago. One must know that in the first stint, Vettel displayed terrifying speed.
And now, after five or six laps, he could still see Vettel's tail lights.
This was enough to indicate that Vettel was definitely preserving his tyres.
Therefore, he basically didn't pay much attention to Vettel's speed and also settled into his own rhythm.
When it came to tyre preservation, he had quite a bit of experience.
Perhaps it was precisely because it was difficult to make progress on the track that all the teams were playing mind games off the track.
It was thought that the positions on the track would remain as they were until the second pit stop.
But on Lap 26, Hamilton's speed continuously dropped.
He was successively overtaken by his teammate Rosberg and Red Bull's Kvyat.
Hamilton (team radio): "NO POWER GUYS."
Bono immediately responded: "OK, we're investigating what's happening, we do see an issue."
Niki Lauda, watching the race, was also confused, making a questioning gesture.
How did a problem suddenly appear out of nowhere?
On the track, Hamilton's speed became slower and slower, and cars continuously overtook him.
Hamilton (team radio): "Quick guys, quick!"
Bono (team radio): "OK, we're working on it, we're working on it."
Hamilton grew anxious and said, "All drivers default to 01. You guys try setting the engine driver default to 01."
Bono (team radio): "It's not working, Lewis. We see the throttle isn't fully open. Is it a pedal issue? We don't see any electronic information."
Hamilton (team radio): "NO, I'm already fully depressing the accelerator now! But there's just no speed!"
In just one lap, Hamilton dropped to 8th place.
"Pure mechanics are still reliable!" Brother Bing exclaimed.
"Pure mechanics aren't reliable either! If the chain breaks, you still can't control it," Brother Fei said with a laugh.
"Looking at this situation, Hamilton might not score any points in this race."
Brother Bing shook his head. Losing points due to a car malfunction, no matter what, was a difficult thing to accept, especially when contending for the World Championship title.
"Then his pursuit of Wu Shi will be severely delayed."
"We can calculate. I remember Wu Shi is currently at 211 points, Hamilton at 200 points. If this race ends like this, Wu Shi will be at 229 points," Brother Bing calculated.
"There are six more races to go."
However, at this moment, Massa's team radio sounded again: "My gearbox keeps getting stuck in neutral."
Dave (team radio): "No problem, everything is fine, keep driving."
On Lap 27, Vettel set the fastest lap of the race at 1 minute 50.306 seconds, pulling nearly 3 seconds ahead of Wu Shi in one lap.
Hamilton was still trying to fix his car, anxiously asking:
"Quick, tell me how to reset the throttle?"
Bono (via team radio): "Try HPP default 01."
Hamilton (via team radio): "It's not working!"
Bono continued to tell Hamilton: "Try Strat Mode 1; let's see if that brings the throttle back."
Hamilton (via team radio): "NO, it's not working!"
Bono (via team radio): "Okay, back to Strat Mode 3, try RS Mode, mind the EB."
"No."
Hamilton's voice on the team radio grew more and more anxious.
But in the end, Bono could only tell him to wait and see, to run a few more laps first.
This was almost equivalent to pronouncing Hamilton's death sentence for this race.
F1 isn't like an old CRT TV that you can just tap a few times and it'll work again.
At the same time, Massa was called into the pit lane on the other side to check on his situation.
After pitting, nothing was found, and he went back out.
However, after only one lap, Massa reported gearbox issues again; no matter what he adjusted, it would inexplicably jump back to neutral.
Eventually, there was nothing else to be done, and on Lap 31, Massa was called in to retire from the race.
On Lap 33, Hamilton (Lap 31) also chose to retire.
Jonathan (team radio): "Lewis and Massa have both retired."
Wu Shi (via team radio): "That's one good news and one bad news. Luckily you didn't tell me there was good news and bad news and then ask which I wanted to hear first."
"Hahaha!"
Wu Shi's team radio made the commentators laugh.
"It seems Wu Shi is quite relaxed right now."
"Indeed, Ricciardo has tried multiple times but hasn't been able to overtake."
At the end of Lap 33, Kvyat pitted for new tyres.
Red Bull Racing's tyre change had issues again; the right rear wheel got stuck, resulting in a 6.6-second pit stop.
"What's going on with Red Bull Racing today!"
"Nothing is going their way!"
"The advantage they worked so hard to gain on track was instantly lost."
At the same time, Alonso also chose to pit and retire, his seventh retirement of the season.
It seems the high-temperature environment puts considerable stress on the engines.
At the end of Lap 35, the pit stop rush arrived.
Pérez and Nasr both pitted.
"Wu Shi, we need to be aware, Ricciardo is 2.1 seconds behind you."
"Are we preparing to pit?" Wu Shi asked.
"Yes, we are considering it," Jonathan said.
As the supersoft tyres reached the end of their life, the front-running drivers' speeds increased.
Wu Shi clearly felt that Ricciardo was struggling to maintain his pace.
Meanwhile, Verstappen had quietly moved up to eighth place.
This young man, who started the race a lap behind everyone, was silently achieving great things, unnoticed even by the broadcast cameras.
On Lap 37, Vettel suddenly shouted on the team radio:
"There's a fan on the track! Between Turn 13 and 14!"
This was immediately followed by Wu Shi's expletive-laden team radio in his native language:
"Holy crap! There's someone on the track! And he's in the DRS zone!"
This shock for Wu Shi far surpassed seeing someone slowly walking on a highway.
After all, even on highways in some plains provinces, drivers only boast speeds of 174-220 km/h.
But here, Wu Shi glanced down and saw it was a terrifying 288 km/h!
"BOX, BOX, Wu Shi, we're pitting, changing to soft tyres, to run the final stint."
Although Jonathan didn't understand what Wu Shi was babbling about, seeing this scene, he guessed that a Safety Car was inevitable and unhesitatingly issued the team command.
Sure enough, the Safety Car was deployed immediately.
"Oh! How is there someone on the track! How can this happen! How can you watch a race by running onto the track!"
The commentators were also stunned; such a situation was exceedingly rare.
"Hahaha!"
"He's climbed back behind the barrier! You can't mess around like that in Singapore! There might even be caning!"
The commentators never expected that this Safety Car deployment wasn't due to a vehicle incident, but because someone had entered the track!
But regardless, the appearance of the Safety Car directly led all the front-runners to pit.
Kvyat lost out again.
This time, the pit stop times for the top three drivers were perfectly normal.
Even though Williams was slightly slow, taking a full 3.1 seconds, Ricciardo wasn't much faster at 2.6 seconds, which didn't affect the overall outcome.
Kimi, however, took over 4 seconds, but that also didn't impact the big picture.
In fact, once that fan climbed off the track, things returned to normal on the circuit.
However, the Safety Car still came out.
"Rosberg is in fifth place, and he's also on soft tyres. In the points zone, everyone is on yellow tyres (medium compound tyres)," Jonathan said.
"Copy, so that means I just need to run the remaining 23 laps normally?"
"Yes, the Safety Car will stay out for two more laps, so you only need to race for 21 laps," Jonathan reminded him.
The Safety Car was moving very slowly, making it difficult to maintain the temperature of the yellow tyres (medium compound tyres), so the front-running drivers had no choice but to keep warming their tyres left and right.
Wu Shi even saw Ricciardo clip something at Turn 13 through his rearview mirror, almost hitting the wall.
On Lap 40, the Safety Car withdrew.
Vettel warmed his tyres left and right while slowing down, bunching up the field.
Once the tyre temperatures were up, he immediately accelerated and pulled away.
"We have 20 laps left."
After Jonathan spoke, the broadcast cameras no longer focused on the front, because the battle behind was exceptionally fierce.
Button was attacking Bottas, but after Bottas defended his line and braked, Button couldn't brake in time and almost touched Bottas's rear.
More debris fell onto the track.
However, this time, no Safety Car was deployed; there was only a yellow flag warning for the third sector, which was quickly withdrawn.
Behind, as soon as Button left, Verstappen caught up to Bottas's tail and began his attack.
On Lap 43, the race had about 29 minutes left (out of a full 2 hours).
On Lap 44, after overtaking Bottas on the previous lap, Verstappen set the fastest lap, 1 minute 50.298 seconds!
For the next dozen or so laps, there was basically no further action on the entire track.
In the final few laps, Ricciardo desperately chased Wu Shi.
But on the narrow Marina Bay Street Circuit, as long as Wu Shi slightly blocked the track, Ricciardo couldn't pass him with ease.
The distance gained on the straight with DRS could not be converted into an attacking opportunity in the corners.
The two drivers battled constantly in the final laps, but their positions remained unchanged.
Thus, the race reached Lap 61.
Two hours had passed since the official start of the race, but the race organisers still allowed the race to continue, as it was only the final lap.
Ferrari also began to tell Vettel that he could slow down to protect his tyres, as there was no longer any threat from behind.
When Vettel crossed the checkered flag again, he excitedly shouted over the radio:
"Maximum speed Ferrari! Fantastic!"
He then played a snippet of an Italian song, before saying:
"In the heat of Singapore, we kept our cool! Thank you, everyone!"
"Keep enjoying the victory! Guys, that was a great race," Ferrari replied on the team radio.
On the Williams side, Jonathan also sent his congratulations: "Very good! You've gained another 18 points, which is very important!"
"Yes! Thank you, team! Thank you, team!" Wu Shi also cheered a few times.
In the Red Bull Racing team radio, they were also congratulating Ricciardo; this year, they had few opportunities to stand on the podium.
"YES, understood. Cheers, guys. I had a good car, just think we were a bit unlucky, but anyway, thank you!"
Ricciardo said, with some happiness, but more sadness.
His position as runner-up was originally secure, but all of it was ruined by the Safety Car.
If this race had its share of joy and sorrow, then the most sorrowful person was certainly not Ricciardo, but Hamilton, who had already packed up and gone home.
After retiring, the old man with dyed blonde hair left the circuit directly, whether he was rushing to a club or a concert was unknown.
When Vettel parked his car at the number 1 board, fireworks erupted around the track, blooming brilliant sparks in the night sky.
Wu Shi parked his car and saw Vettel and the Ferrari race crew celebrating enthusiastically.
Vettel, in particular, was extremely excited!
Wu Shi was naturally very happy too, but beyond the happiness, there was worry about the future, which prevented him from celebrating to the fullest.
With six Grands Prix remaining, his points lead was only 29 points.
The old man only needed to win 5 races to catch up in points.
And he, Wu Shi, had to win one, otherwise, if he kept finishing second, he would truly be the eternal runner-up.
The fireworks in the sky lasted for a few minutes. After Vettel and his race crew finished celebrating, he came over and patted Wu Shi.
"Well done! Well done!" Vettel was clearly still in a state of excitement.
"Yes! I think this result is good too! Congratulations!" Wu Shi said with a smile.