For everything that the 2023 Singapore GP was, it was the comeback of CARLANDO! David Croft described the duo of Carlos Sainz Jr. and Lando Norris as the “best double act” of Formula 1, and they lived up to that reputation at Sunday’s Grand Prix. As nail-biting as the strategic game was all throughout the race, the racing gods served up some pretty spectacular racing action as they sprinkled a late VSC to trigger a Mercedes onslaught on the Spanish racing ace.

As the freshly pitted duo of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell made a thunderous charge towards the Ferrari of Sainz during the dying embers of the race, it seemed as though the Spaniard had squandered yet another victory from pole in a row. But that’s where his bromance with ex-teammate Lando Norris came in handy as Sainz disguised his selfish motives behind the garb of a helping hand for an old friend.

Carlos Sainz exposed after seemingly helping Lando Norris to the podium at the 2023 Singapore GP

Sainz backed himself into the McLaren of Norris, which gave the Brit some really effective DRS. This meant that the duo of Hamilton and Russell were busy battling Norris as Sainz Jr. stormed his way to victory on some really worn-out hard compound tires.

But the genius of Sainz was even lost on his own team. As Ferrari feared Sainz losing his tires and a shot at victory, the Spaniard was forced to admit his ploy on the team radio comms! Now, ex-Ferrari manager, Peter Windsor has confirmed that Norris’ belief that Sainz helped him was actually just a masterclass that Sainz pulled to aid his own cause.

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He said on his YouTube channel, “The two Mercedes came in for new mediums. That was the next big problem for Carlos Sainz. With two Mercedes on brand new tires and he was on pretty worn tires with all that distance still to go. The only mitigating circumstance, and there’s no way Ferrari could’ve known this was that McLaren were there with Lando Norris also on those older hard tires.”

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With Sainz’s genius move now in hindsight, even his boss couldn’t help himself give the Spaniard his due.

Fred Vasseur credits Singapore GP win to Sainz

Sainz has been the most underrated driver of the 2023 season. But it was just a matter of time before he finally delivered a performance that no one could turn a blind eye to. And the biggest testament to this is his team boss, Frederic Vasseur, publicly admitting to his genius.

Vasseur was quoted by Autosport.com as saying, “It was the idea of Carlos. I don’t want to say it’s obvious, but he knew he was more at risk with Mercedes than with Norris. With Norris we had the same tires, and almost the same pace from the lap one. We were not really at risk with Norris except if we lost the tires, so it was a clever move from Carlos to keep Norris into the DRS.”

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