Lewis Hamilton's engineer makes a remark to Max Verstappen on the team radio during the Singapore GP

Lewis Hamilton's race engineer Peter Bonnington [Bono] briefed the seven-time world champion on Max Verstappen's last-minute tire change ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix on team radio. The start of the Singapore Grand Prix was delayed after a torrential downpour just an hour before the scheduled start time.

After the rain stopped, race marshals and marshals were on the track trying to clear most of the standing water. And it wasn't long before drivers started coming out of the garage with different clear strategies.

Most initially came out on full rains while a few made the decision to start on intermediates. Verstappen then opted to switch to the inters, but quickly discovered how difficult it could be on the inters after crashing at turn 7.

The reigning F1 world champion locked himself in and had to take the escape route, but managed to avoid hitting the obstacles.

Hamilton was one of the riders to run on wet tires and was soon warned by the team radio that he would be following in Verstappen's footsteps. "Just an information, Verstappen has moved on to middlemen," Bonnington said.

"It went straight on the escape lane at turn 7 I think, so it looks like the curbs and painted lines are very slippery, especially at turn 21."

Sergio Perez also raised concerns about setting up intermediaries to start the race, saying he felt the track was too wet for them. But Felipe Massa, who drove for Williams in the last wet Singapore Grand Prix in 2017, thinks the intermediates are the right choice.

"2017 was my last race here and I started at the extremes and it was even wetter than today - bad choice!" Massa said. "So I think the middleman is the right one.

"It's quite tricky in the first corner, riding in the wet. Let's see how it goes in the race."