Sebastian Vettel took full advantage of a gearbox failure
for Lewis Hamilton to take an overdue second victory of the season season in
Singapore. Starting from pole position, Hamilton drove a near-flawless race and
looked set to be able to keep Vettel at bay until his McLaren gave up the ghost
just shy of half-distance. This handed Vettel the initiative, the German taking
the win fairly comfortably from Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso, who sees his
championship lead marginally reduced.
Hamilton, who had secured pole position on Saturday by half
a second from an on-form Pastor Maldonado, made a fine getaway at the start of
the race, leading the pack through the first sequence of bends from Vettel,
Button, Maldonado (who dropped two places) and Alonso. It was immediately
apparent that Hamilton and Vettel were the quickest cars, and the pair quickly
built up a buffer against Button in the first dozen or so laps.
Although Button began to claw back some time towards the end
of the first stint, during which the majority of the field were using
super-soft tyres, Hamilton and Vettel were able to press home their advantage
after switching to soft tyres on laps 12 and 10 respectively. The German’s
earlier stop had cost him some time as he negotiated his way through traffic,
but he was quickly able to get back on terms with Hamilton and from that point
onwards the race looked to be a straight duel between the McLaren and Red Bull.
That was until Hamilton’s unfortunate gearbox failure struck
at the start of lap 22, which saw his McLaren coast to a halt and the Brit’s
title aspirations recieve a severe dent.
Vettel now had the lead of the race, and although two safety
car periods served to nullify his advantage over Button, the reigning champion
never looked like relinquishing his 23rd career victory which came after just
59 of the 61 scheduled laps as the two-hour mark was reached at that point.
Vettel is now very much back in the hunt for this year’s championship, sitting
just 29 points behind Alonso with 150 still up for grabs.
On a day where he seemingly lacked the pace to rival either
Hamilton or Vettel, second place was a fair return for Button – with only 23
points now separating the two McLarens in the points standings, the prospect of
team orders to assist Hamilton’s title bid now seem as remote as ever.
The two safety car periods played straight into the hands of
Alonso. The first, caused by Narain Karthikeyan coming to blows with the
barriers at turn 18 on lap 32, saw Alonso move ahead of Maldonado with whom he
had been battling prior to the deployment of the safety car. Both Alonso and
Maldonado had pitted on lap 29, but the Williams driver made an additional stop
to switch from super-softs to softs while the safety car was out. Alonso, who
had instead opted for softs, thus took third place, although Maldonado was
forced to retire with hydraulic issues shortly afterwards anyway.
Paul di Resta, who initially held his grid position of
sixth, had now moved up to fourth behind Alonso thanks to Hamilton and
Maldonado falling by the wayside. The safety car periods (the second of which
was caused by Michael Schumacher violently rear-ending Jean-Eric Vergne’s car
whilst dicing for position shortly after the restart on lap 39) brought the
Force India in contention for a podium, but Alonso was able to hang on to
secure a second consecutive third-place finish. Di Resta nonetheless took his
best ever F1 finish with fourth place, matching teammate Nico Hulkenberg’s
position from Spa.
Fifth place went to Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg, who took
his best finish since Monaco, narrowly ahead of Kimi Raikkonen whose Lotus
showed, as ever, greater race pace than in qualifying after the Finn qualified
a lowly 12th place. His teammate Romain Grosjean, back after his
one-race ban, drove a sensible race to seventh place, dutifully allowing his
faster teammate past late in the race. Felipe Massa had a decidely more
eventful afternoon, dropping to last after suffering a first-lap puncture
before making good use of the safety cars to claw his way back up to eighth
place – spectacularly overtaking compatriot Bruno Senna whilst sideways en
route to doing so.
The final points fell to Daniel Ricciardo, the sole Toro
Rosso driver to make the finish, in ninth, and Mark Webber who suffered a
dismal afternoon with just one point to show for his efforts. The Aussie driver
qualified seventh and was stuck behind Di Resta during the first stint, opting
to make a very early first stop for that reason. He recovered the lost ground
after losing time in traffic, but having to make his third stop under the
safety car cost him valuable positions that he had trouble regaining. He
cleared Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber and Senna’s Williams, but failed to pass his
countryman Ricciardo and was forced to settle for tenth.
Senna was on course for eleventh before having to retire in
the closing stages, handing the place to Perez, for whom a two-stop strategy
failed to pay dividends because of the safety cars. The Mexican had made light
contact with fellow two-stopper Hulkenberg after the final restart, but it was
a collision with the other Sauber of Kobayashi the following lap that gave the
Force India a puncture and ended any hopes of points for the German. Kobayashi
also headed to the pits for a fresh front wing, promoting Timo Glock’s Marussia
to twelfth; that position catapults Marussia ahead of rivals Caterham in the
battle for tenth place in the constructors championship and the all-important
prize money that comes with it.
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