Max Verstappen has joked that he won a wager with his Red Bull team at the Italian Grand Prix, so there is no new chassis at the Singapore Grand Prix.
For weeks, there have been rumours that the Austrian team are planning a new, lightweight chassis to bring to the RB18, ready for their final push in the 2022 season.
Verstappen retired from two of the first three races in Bahrain and Australia, either side of a win in Saudi Arabia.
The Dutchman has since added another 10 victories to his tally, displaying utter dominance in the title race, despite the best efforts of Ferrari.
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The reigning champion took victory at the Italian Grand Prix last time out, his fifth in a row, so as the saying goes, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
“We made a deal that if I would win in Monza, then I would keep the same chassis,” Verstappen told Sky Sports.
“I was like, ‘should I then lift and be second or should I actually win the race?’
“We were joking about that before the race, but then, because I won it, we keep it.”
Verstappen leads Charles Leclerc by 116 points in the title race heading into the final six rounds of the season, and he could mathematically get his second world title sealed up this weekend.
He would need some misfortune to befall Leclerc and team-mate, Sergio Perez, if that were to transpire, so it is more likely that Suzuka will be the scene of championship celebrations.
As a result, winning it at the Marina Bay Street Circuit is not especially on the Red Bull driver’s mind.
“I mean, not really,” added Verstappen.
“We’ll just try to have a good weekend and to win it here would be nice, [but] it’s not something I’m really thinking about.”
The 25-year-old, who celebrates his birthday on Friday, affirmed that he was fighting Sir Lewis Hamilton in machinery that was not quite on the level of the Mercedes car last season.
Ferrari have, at times, had a quicker car than Red Bull, so Verstappen’s two title-winning campaigns are not entirely different.
“For me, it doesn’t really feel a lot different to last year in that sense, but I think as a team, also, we’ve been really strong after the retirements we had at the beginning of the year, that we had to get on top of,” he explained.
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“But, we reacted really quickly and from there on, most of our races I think we have maximised, and we’ve done a good job.
“But nevertheless, we have to look into things that we can do better.”
The other Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, as well as Mercedes’ George Russell, are set to fall out of mathematical contention this weekend.