Singapore GP: FIA grants rare garage door exemption as storms drench Marina Bay
The shutters came down in Singapore on Thursday—literally. With rain hammering the Marina Bay Street Circuit and thunder rolling around the bay, the FIA issued an unusual directive allowing teams to close their garage doors while they prepped for the weekend.
Normally, that’s a no-go. Since F1 tightened up its display rules, teams can’t hide cars behind screens or shut the world out unless they’ve got a clear mechanical reason. But the race director always holds the right to make a call for safety, and this was one of those nights. FIA race director Rui Marques confirmed the exception in a terse notice: “Due to the severe weather conditions, all teams are allowed to close their garage doors.”
The scene outside those doors was as chaotic as you’d expect. Water ran like rivers through the paddock, team kit was whisked out of the spray, and mechanics worked under a drumbeat of rain on carbon fiber. In short: classic Singapore, just angrier than usual.
Weather update from the paddock: ☔️
#F1 || #SingaporeGP 🇸🇬pic.twitter.com/YTE8nxlRt7
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing)October 2, 2025
The Meteorological Service Singapore has pegged the first half of the month for thundery showers, daily highs around 32–34°C, and rainfall near average—though “average” in Singapore can still mean biblical if you catch the wrong cloud. The FIA’s own outlook ran with “thundery showers” through Thursday evening and a moderated chance of more into Friday afternoon, which threatens to turn FP1 into a track-evolution lottery and makes any long-run read tricky.
But it might not be the rain that hurts most this weekend. The heat will. The FIA has flagged a heat hazard for the event, and if you’ve ever watched drivers peel themselves out of cars here, you know why. Night race or not, Marina Bay is the calendar’s pressure cooker: endurance test, sweat fest, and a quiet negotiation with your own limits.
Ralf Schumacher, who’s raced in the worst of it, put it simply on Sky Deutschland’s Backstage Boxengasse podcast. Malaysia was his reference point: humid, warm, and relentless. “One must also drink a lot of water,” he said, adding that he trained in a heated gym to simulate the conditions—not sauna hot, but close enough to feel the strain. As for the pace, he doesn’t expect a flat-out sprint. “We did actually drive like a sprint race with the pit stops and everything, we were basically always going full speed,” he said of the old days. “Last year, people were driving up to seven seconds slower, starting from the qualifying to the race.” In other words: don’t be fooled by qualifying fireworks. On Sunday, survival can be worth more than a tenth.
For teams, Thursday’s soaking complicates an already delicate dance. Singapore demands precision: keeping the rear alive over kerbs, trimming drag without surrendering stability, and dialing in traction for 23 corners that ask for patience in, aggression out. Now add uncertain track grip, a green surface scrubbed by storms, and potential showers before FP2, and you’ve got engineers rewriting their run plans on the fly. If Friday stays patchy, you might see some cautious mileage early and late as squads try to stitch together a representative picture for Saturday.
There’s also the human side. The cockpit here turns into a sauna, and the rhythm of the race is punishing: little time to breathe, endless micro-corrections, walls closing in. The heat hazard guidance is a reminder that this one can only be won if it’s first survived. Expect ice vests, cool suits considered and discarded, and drivers pacing themselves through media, briefings, and sim time just to keep the needle in the safe zone.
The garage doors will open again soon enough. The public will get its peek at updated floors, cooling louvres, and whatever late-season tweaks the frontrunners have brought to keep their championship pushes on track. But for a few rain-lashed hours, Singapore went old-school: the world shut out, mechanics working by the hum of generators, and a city circuit reminding everyone that it still sets the toughest test on the calendar.
Practice is due Friday. Keep one eye on the radar, and the other on the ice baths.
