singasnore

This weekend it's the Singapore Grand Prix.

It has the uniqueness of being F1's only night race (one of the Arab ones happens in the evening, but Singapore is properly in the night).  And that's about it.

It's a street race has all the traditional street race issue - narrow, almost impossible to overtake, boring layout, slow and too long.

As you may be able to tell I'm not really looking forward to it.  Of course I may be proven wrong.  Valencia is usually as dull as dishwater, but this year it was a cracker.

However, I've had the feeling in the last few races that the close-ness and random-ness that has tended to characterise this season has started to settle down a bit.  The top teams have started to distance themselves from the pack.  Saying that it's not a big difference - Sauber did spectacularly well at Monza, for example.

Apparently they put on some interesting events for the spectators at Singapore - they have a big concert with big-name stars and there's a big Ferris wheel you can go in.  I'm not sure if that's generally open to the public outside of the races, but certainly during the race you have to get special tickets for it.

But even with that I don't I'd fancy going.  I assume it would be horribly hot and humid, even at night and I'm not sure I really see any particular appeal of watching F1 cars at night.  So it doesn't appeal on the telly and it doesn't appeal as one to go too - it's therefore a bit of a classic of Bernie's new era or tracks!

The championship overall remains in real contention.  Alonso has a big lead and is consistently getting the best out of a car that still isn't the best, even with the improvements Ferrari has made.  However, McLaren seem to have finally gotten over their mid-season "jitters".

They started the season with the best car and two of the best drivers, but a combination of issues (pit stops, crashes, unreliability) and perhaps either not updating the car in the right direction or letting others catch up seems to have put them further back than you would have expected at the start of the year.

Singapore actually sits on its own, but it's the only one that does in this final stretch - the last two were double headers and all of the remaining six are too.  It's going to be an intense end of the season!