Ferrari strategist on the specifics of the Singapore race…

      Ferrari’s chief strategist Adam Nicholls told journalists from the press office about the peculiarities of the race in Singapore…

      Question: The race in Singapore is one of the most challenging from a strategic point of view. What tools do you use and how do you prepare for different possible scenarios, given that the safety car often comes out and red flags appear on this track?

      Adam Nicholls: The Singapore race has always been difficult for strategists, and this year the increase of the pit‑lane speed limit to 80 km/h has added another variable capable of changing the balance between one‑stop and two‑stop strategies.

      We start preparing several weeks before the event. We build a race model and run thousands of simulations to understand which strategy options we might see. We identify the main sources of uncertainty and model them to understand how the race might change if some aspects differ slightly, and to ensure our approach is flexible enough for us to adapt in the event of unexpected changes.

      There is a very high likelihood of a safety car in Singapore – last year this Grand Prix was run without one for the first time – so we model all situations to understand how the race would change if a safety car appears on any lap and to make sure we do not expose ourselves to too much risk.

      Question: In practice sessions how do you balance preparing for qualifying, which is decisive at this track, with the need to gather information about race pace for Sunday?

      Adam Nicholls: Because overtaking is so difficult, qualifying here is indeed even more important than at other tracks. Preparation for qualifying and studying the behaviour of the Soft C5 compound tyres will be the focus during the free practice sessions, but, as in previous years, we expect most teams to do several runs with higher fuel loads at the end of the first and second practice. This will allow us to collect important information for the race: to assess tyre wear, our competitiveness relative to rivals, and the impact of the new pit‑lane speed limit.

      Another complication in Singapore is that it is a night race, but the first and third practice sessions take place during the day, in different conditions than Saturday qualifying and the Sunday race. This increases the importance of the second practice for gathering data for both qualifying and the race.