Singapore GP Review and Japanese GP Preview: Rules, Retirements and Rewards

Heading into the Singapore GP weekend, the main question was whether Mercedes could continue their dominance, or if other teams could challenge them on the much slower and tighter Marina Bay Street Circuit.

After Free Practice, Red Bull and Ferrari appeared to be a lot closer than in the previous race at Monza, and Toro Rosso looked relatively strong - especially with Jean Eric Vergne, who doesn't even have a contract for 2015.

In Qualifying, after the usual suspicions that Mercedes were sandbagging, they duly took the front row, but the gap between Hamilton (pole) and Rosberg (2nd) was just 0.007s, the smallest margin for a long time.

Behind them, we saw Red Bull, Ferrari and Williams (who appear to have improved their slow circuit setup) take the next six places, ahead of the McLaren and Toro Rosso drivers (Magnussen and Kvyat made the top 10, their team mates did not).

Force India were below par in Qualifying, with Singapore not suiting their car in the same way as low downforce circuits, whereas Lotus were struggling as usual (but not in the same way as they were last time out).

Marussia and Caterham completed the grid, more than half a second off the other teams.

All was calm going into Sunday, but in an interview with Sky Sports F1, Lewis admitted that "if his car doesn't finish tomorrow, he's still in the mix; if mine doesn't, I'm not" - clearly he felt it was time Nico could afford a DNF.

However, going to the grid, Nico had various problems with his steering wheel so had it changed at least once. It didn't help, so he couldn't get away for the warm up lap - during which Kobayashi pulled off (counting as a DNS or did not start result) - meaning that Rosberg had to start from the pits (if at all) rather than 2nd.

Once the race was under way, Hamilton pulled away pretty comfortably, with Vettel and Alonso both jumping Ricciardo. Jenson gained a few places, but McLaren nearly had a two car collision - they were lucky to get away with only the loss of positions to Williams.

Most runners were roughly status quo until a few changes around the pitstops, except Rosberg who was still nursing problems until his retirement on lap 14.

Then on lap 30 Sutil squeezed Perez against the barrier going into Turn 8 - this left some debris on track and the Safety Car was deployed (as it had been in the first six Singapore GPs) for a good seven laps - including time for lapped cars to overtake, including Perez. The unlapping period would be significant later on for both the Mexican and Force India.

After the Safety Car had returned to the pits, we had an interesting situation where Hamilton still had to change to the Soft tyres, whereas the three drivers behind him (Vettel, Ricciardo and Alonso) had all done their compulsory stints on both sets of tyres. This meant the Brit had to pull out a substantial gap to ensure he would lead or come out close to Vettel when he eventually pitted.

This was when the Mercedes really got going, pulling away a good 3-4 seconds per lap initially - this eventually went down to about a second a lap before the change to soft tyres. When Lewis came out, he was with Ricciardo and a couple of seconds behind Vettel, who would go on to lead a lap for the first time in 2014. Shortly after, Jenson Button pulled over with a car problem and became the fifth retirement, promoting Kimi to 7th.

One lap later, Lewis was on the back of Sebastian and forced his way past with DRS before Turn 7. He never looked back and duly won the race to take the title lead by 3 points.

However, it was all going on behind Massa in 5th as team mate Bottas could no longer manage his tyres, and a pumped Vergne was desperate to overturn another 5 second penalty. He forced his way past, as did everyone else down to Magnussen. Perez followed Vergne through soon after for 7th. Raikkonen, Hulkenberg and Magnussen completed the points ahead of Bottas.

Maldonado had his best race in 12th, ahead of Grosjean, Kvyat, Ericsson, Bianchi and Chilton.

The Singapore GP result leaves only six drivers in contention for the title, they are Hamilton, Rosberg, Ricciardo, Alonso, Vettel and Bottas. It also gives Mercedes a small chance of becoming Constructors champions in Japan, and puts Force India on their best ever points total ahead of McLaren.

Ferrari closed on Williams, and Toro Rosso made good progress with another eight points.

Looking ahead to Japan, depending on certain results we could be down to just three drivers in contention (Hamilton, Rosberg and Ricciardo), and Red Bull could strengthen their 2nd place over Williams and Ferrari.

Neither Mercedes driver has won at Suzuka, but then again neither driver had won in Malaysia, Bahrain or Spain and Hamilton won all three (Austria has been excluded as F1 hadn't raced there since 2003).

Jenson Button will be desperate to impress after his 2011 win, and Kamui Kobayashi would love to do something special in his home race after his 2012 podium with Sauber.

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Italian GP Review and Singapore GP Preview: Speed, Saves and Sanity

In the Italian GP, the biggest questions were whether the Mercedes pair would crash into each other again, and how the new asphalt run off at Parabolica would affect proceedings.

The former was relatively easy to answer as they never came within half a second of each other during the whole weekend, and the latter wasn't as bad as it could've been due to everyone having at least two wheels on track for pretty much the whole weekend - but at least it was there to collect any GP2 or GP3 madness that preceeded.

In practice, Mercedes topped the times in every session, but both drivers lost a good hour of time with reliability problems. Williams and McLaren also impressed, and duly took the second and third rows in Qualifying behind the dominant Mercedes pair. Fernando Alonso and the Red Bull pair followed, with Sergio Perez completing the top 10.

Daniil Kvyat became the first person to use a sixth engine this year, and as a result dropped from 11th to 21st. Kimi Raikkonen and Jean Eric Vergne followed, and another below par session for Nico Hulkenberg saw him in 13th. Sauber and Lotus struggled again, languishing in 14th-17th positions - the latter failing to make it past Q1. The usual four completed the grid with the returning Kobayashi beating the Marussias and Marcus Ericsson (who ended up 22nd) started from the pitlane after an FP3 infringement.

In the race, Lewis Hamilton had a slow getaway, leaving Nico Rosberg to capitalise with an early lead over the fast starting Kevin Magnussen and Felipe Massa. Valtteri Bottas was affected by Hamilton and therefore lost out even more.

Max Chilton was an early retirement on lap 6 with a bounce over the kerbs and a crash at the Variante della Roggia (second chicane), and Fernando Alonso ended his finishing record with an engine problem mid race - leaving Ferrari with a genuine chance of not scoring points at home!

Having already gone down the escape road at the Variante del Rettifilo (first chicane) once, Nico Rosberg went there again, however this time he could not keep the charging Lewis Hamilton behind. They powered on to a seventh 1-2 finish of 2014, the first since Austria, and Massa held on to third ahead of Bottas, who had recovered from midfield. It was Felipe's first podium since the Spanish GP last year, and in front of the tifosi, after driving for Ferrari for eight years and being part of the Ferrari network for even longer prior to 2014.

Ricciardo passed Vettel for 5th, and Perez finished 7th after a five second penalty for Magnussen, who finished just ahead of him on the road but ended up 10th. Jenson Button was just behind Perez, and Kimi held off Kvyat after the latter suffered a late brake failure at the first chicane - the 20 year old just managed to keep the STR9 out of the barriers and finished 11th. Hulkenberg and Vergne followed, with the remaining runners (Lotus, Sauber and Marussia) all lapped.

This leaves Nico Rosberg with a 22 point lead over Lewis Hamilton, and Mercedes with a 182 point lead over Red Bull.

Turning our attention to Singapore, FIA have decided to clamp down on team radio messages from the teams from now on - will the radio silence help drivers concentrate over the two hour night race?

We will find out in due course - next week's race is at 8pm local time (1pm UK, the same as most European races).

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Belgian GP Review and Italian GP Preview: Tricks, Trips and Triples

As with most races so far this year, the Belgian GP gave us more questions than answers.

After a fairly typical wet qualifying, barring a below par session for Hulkenberg, a car problem for Gutierrez and André Lotterer replacing Kobayashi, almost everyone was roughly where they should’ve been based on 2014 form. The big stories in Q3 were the two second margin Mercedes had over their rivals and Vettel beating Alonso for third.

In the race, Mercedes initially scampered away and two drivers had an early exit: Pastor Maldonado and André Lotterer. Jules Bianchi was caught up in a first lap incident and had to limp back with a puncture. All was calm, but then came lap 2 - Rosberg wanted to pass Hamilton at Les Combes, but the latter was having none of it. The result was two damaged cars (one beyond full repair) and more embarrassment after the Hungarian GP team radio call to let Nico pass Lewis.

This was another significant blow to Hamilton’s title chances, as he had a damaged floor and a puncture to deal with for almost the entire 7km Spa Francorchamps lap.

However, with another Mercedes self-destruction came Ricciardo’s chance, and having passed Vettel (who went wide at Pouhon) on lap 6, he took the initiative once Rosberg had pitted for tyres and a new front wing assembly.

Despite being flat out thereafter, the damage had already been done and Nico had to settle for second to Ricciardo, who won for the third time in 2014, after a final stint on the soft tyres. Kimi’s resurgence continued with an early pitstop giving him track position over Rosberg and Bottas until the closing stages.

Behind them was Vettel, Magnussen (who was later demoted to 12th), Button, Alonso, Perez, Kvyat and Hulkenberg. Jean-Eric Vergne, who will be replaced by 16 year old Max Verstappen in 2015, just missed out in 11th.

This result left Mercedes comfortably on top of both championships, but Rosberg returns to his post-Austria lead of 29 points with just seven races remaining. However there are technically eight races (points wise) as Abu Dhabi has double points, which could work either way if it turns out to be the deciding race.

For this year’s Italian GP, we should see higher top speeds than 2013, but probably not record breaking speeds.

Coming into this race, pace would suggest Mercedes and Williams are the teams to beat, but Red Bull or even Toro Rosso could surprise us all yet again - especially if it rains as it did in 2008. Lotus and Caterham are likely to struggle again, as could Sauber who are still yet to score this year.

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