The floodlit Marina Bay circuit offers a unique challenge to today's F1 drivers. The technical corners, humid atmosphere and sheer amount of time spent in the cockpit make it one of the most gruelling events on the calendar, and its spectacular backdrop has led to a deserving label of 'Monaco of the East'. Fernando Alonso overcame all the obstacles to record his third win in five races, making him the real danger man of the championship, as well as dispelling the sour taste of his contrived win here of two years ago as a result of Crashgate.
Red Bull, after dominant displays at the other street circuits of Monaco and Valencia earlier in the season, seemed to hold all the cards during practice. However, when it came to qualifying, it was the blistering pace of Ferrari and Alonso that bagged another crucial pole position. It wasn't all good news for Ferrari though, as Felipe Massa in the sister car suffered gearbox failure, and was forced to line up 24th and last. Sebastian Vettel was the man who joined Alonso on the front row, three places ahead of fellow RB6 pilot and championship leader Mark Webber. The McLarens of Britons Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button split the Red Bull pair.
As the race got underway, Vettel made a superior getaway to Alonso, but was covered off in an aggressive leftward lunge by the Spaniard. Further round the initial tour, there was contact between series returnee Nick Heidfeld of Sauber and the Force India of Tonio Liuzzi, the net result of which was an unscheduled front-wing change for the former and retirement for the latter. As the officials deemed where Liuzzi parked to be potentially unsafe, the Safety Car was scrambled at the beginning of lap 3.
Webber, unable to make an impression on the McLarens ahead, was instructed to make an early pit-stop to get his softer tyres out of the way. He was joined by numerous others, but as they all rejoined the circuit, they were forced to form an orderly queue behind Virgin Racing's Timo Glock who opted to stay out. As the Safety Car peeled into the pits and race restarted, Webber made short work of Glock, before setting about trying to close the gap back to the McLarens several places ahead prior to their pitstops.
The Australian wasted no time in making a series of decisive overtakes, first on Kamui Kobayashi, then Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello. Behind, Hulkenberg shunted into the inside of Petrov, costing himself a place to Sutil, and the Russian an extra spot to Massa, who had made serious headway after pitting at the end of the first lap. The first of the lead cars to pit was Hamilton on lap 29, who duly fell behind Webber who was able to stay within 20 seconds of the Brit and thus jump into third after the pitstops took place. However, his teammate Vettel along with race leader Alonso was sufficiently ahead to retain the first two positions after they pitted simultaneously on lap 30.
Hamilton would get a chance to retaliate however as a result of a safety car deployed courtesy of Kamui Kobayashi, who had buried his Sauber in the barrier at turn 18 on lap 32, joined out of sympathy by Hispania's Bruno Senna. With two Virgin cars between Vettel and Webber at the restart four laps later, Hamilton was able to make a run at Webber, attempting to dive around the outside of the Australian at turn 7. However, Webber had nowhere to go but into Hamilton, putting the Brit out on the spot for the second time in as many races. The stewards deemed it a racing incident and as such awarded no penalties. They did likewise for a later, rather overambitious move by Schumacher on his fellow German Heidfeld, although the other Sauber was now too out of the race and the 7-time champ was forced to limp back to the pits with his front wing making sparks as it dragged along the circuit.
Meanwhile, Robert Kubica was forced to make an unscheduled stop after his Renault picked up a puncture from 6th. But with the superior grip of new tyres compared with those around him who had been running the same set of tyres since the first safety car period on lap 3, the Pole made short work of Buemi, Petrov, Massa, Hulkenberg and finally Sutil to recover all but one of the places he had lost. All the while, at the front Vettel had been steadily reducing Alonso's three-second advantage to a matter of tenths with a handful of laps to go.
There was to be one final piece of drama – Heikki Kovalainen, after some contact with Sebastien Buemi, was forced to park his car on the start finish straight after it caught fire, creating a no-overtaking yellow flag zone in the final corners of the race. The pint-sized Finn leapt out of his car, was handed a fire extinguisher from the pit-wall, and proceeded to put out the fire about to consume his Lotus T127.
Alonso held on by two tenths of a second for win number four of the season from Vettel, putting himself within 11 points of Webber, who finished third. Hamilton's non-finish left him in 3rd place, 20 points behind, 5 points ahead of Button who banked a solid 4th place finish. Rosberg, Barrichello, Kubica, Hulkenberg, Massa and Sutil, who was awarded a 20-second penalty for gaining places by leaving the circuit, made up the rest of the points-scorers.
Hamilton said after his blunder that he isn't focussing on the title any longer. That may seem a bit premature given he's only 20 points behind Webber in the title chase, but bearing in mind the superiority of the Ferrari and Red Bull cars which looks likely to persist, his chances do seem somewhat slim. But, as Alonso proved a few races ago, it's never too late to re-assert yourself in what promises to be a thrilling title run-in.
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