The Singapore Grand Prix has quickly become one of the classics of the Formula 1 circus. It is the only full night race of the season, the flood lights shine through the dark producing a glorious circuit of light, with the backdrop of the city beautifully lit up too.
The drivers see little of this, all they know is the track is encased in concrete, with a relentless 61 laps taking nearly two hours to complete, during which time the drivers will lose up to two litres of fluid such is the humidity, and any lack of concentration will be punished immediately with a trip to the wall.
Sebastian Vettel had total concentration as he makes his way to a second consecutive world championship. Coming into the pits he had the Lotus of Heikki Kovalainen in front of him and had the awareness to know that it would likely exit near him too. In fact he watched out for it as Heikki nearly side swiped him coming out of his pit box just avoiding a collision, but for which Lotus would be reprimanded for an unsafe release.
That was about as close as anyone was able to get to him all day. It’s getting more difficult to come up with superlatives to describe just how utterly brilliant Sebastian Vettel continues to be this year. This win was his 9th of the year to go with his 11th pole position.
He made a solid start, slotting into the lead. He was up to 1.5 seconds quicker than anyone else in the early laps, pulling clear by 7 seconds in just 5 laps. His lead was wiped out by a safety car, but helped by traffic, at the restart he opened up a gap of 9 seconds in one lap. And even after his rivals had cleared the back markers he was still at some points 2 seconds a lap quicker.
After the final pit stops with 11 laps to go, Jenson Button, the only driver who could even remotely live with him today was catching at a significant rate, but he remained calm, controlled and worked his way methodically through the traffic; he didn’t look worried at all.
Quite frankly, he destroyed the opposition this evening, he may have the best car, but he has utilised it to its full capability. Under the night sky, the fireworks were sparked to celebrate his victory. He now needs only one more point to ignite a further celebration of being the youngest double world champion in history.
di Resta continues to shine
Paul di Resta was one of the stars of the race, maybe even the brightest. He was the only driver in the top 10 to start on the harder compound tyre. It was meant to be around a second a lap slower but when viewing the live timing at the beginning, you could see him consistently lapping within a few tenths of his Force India team mate Adrian Sutil, and never dropping more than a few seconds behind.
It was impressive stuff, rising up to third place he was one of the last to make their first pit stop emerging behind Sutil but on fresh super soft tyres which enabled him to quickly pass his team mate. During the safety car most drivers on a two stop strategy came in for a free pit stop, he emerged in 5th and would hold this until a charging Lewis Hamilton overtook him, twice.
Paul lapped faster than Nico Rosberg in the Mercedes and Sutil, pulling away to achieve his best career result so far in 6th position., it was a great result from 10th on the grid. Rosberg had a fair race, but Mercedes were destroying their tyres quickly, and was lucky to hold off Sutil to finish 7th. Sutil was 8th behind his rookie team mate and having also been asked to move over for him, his job will begin to be called into question.
Force India will only announce their driver line up in December, and with their reserve driver Nico Hulkenberg expected to graduate to a race seat, you wouldn’t think they’ll want to get rid of Paul di Resta in a hurry.
The Lewis Hamilton incident, again
Lewis Hamilton finished 5th today after an intensely frustrating run to the chequered flag. After having a disagreement with Felipe Massa in qualifying over track position, they clashed during the race.
Hamilton has again involved himself in an incident that needn’t have happened. He made a good start but was crowded out at the first corner by Mark Webber, dropping to 8th. He quickly passed the two Mercedes in the DRS zone and began hounding the Ferrari of Massa.
On lap 12 Lewis had an attack of clumsiness when having just pitted he was on the outside of Massa in the DRS zone going into turn 7. He turned in but just didn’t seem to realise his front wing was there and broke it against Massa’s right rear tyre, puncturing it.
Both pitted and despite a drive through penalty given to Lewis he admittedly produced a great charge back to the top 5 providing some great over taking while Massa could only manage 9th.
Massa was particularly angry about it afterwards in the press conference. He sarcastically told Hamilton he did a “good job” while slapping him on the shoulder. He’s also said Lewis needs to start using his mind more. Massa needs a good result, and incidents which he can’t be blamed for won’t be helping him.
Again Hamilton has made things difficult for himself. He seems to have lost his coolness while in battle, he didn’t used to come into contact quite so regularly in his first few years of Formula 1, always being assured. Something appears to be wrong in his head right now, and he needs to sort it quickly. He can’t have any real complaints about the penalty either despite it looking like a racing incident.
Schumacher flies… into a wall
Another former world champion to revert to amateur overtaking was Michael Schumacher. So impressive since Formula 1 returned from its summer break he spoiled what could have been another 5th place finish such was his pace. He’d pitted for fresh tyres and was closing dramatically on Rosberg and the Sauber of Sergio Perez.
When they got into a tussle, Schumacher was suddenly in with a chance to pass, he attacked in the DRS zone, but failed. Perez on old tyres was struggling, but defended going into turn 10, Schumacher was about to go to the inside, but didn’t expect Perez to brake so early and crashed into the back of him almost flipping before landing in the barrier bringing out the safety car. Michael was later reprimanded for the incident.
Perez survived the incident and raced back to finish 10th, challenging the likes of Rosberg and Sutil before a recovering Massa got him towards the end.
Another promising race for Michael ruined by a careless accident, for his come back to work, these mistakes must be eliminated. Something brought up on the BBC F1 forum worth noting is how curious it seems that two world champions such as Hamilton and Schumacher are getting caught up in these incidents comparatively regularly by their standards.
Both are renowned over takers, but they are also used to leading from the front and battling for the win. Is the frustration of fighting for lower places and the eagerness to get on with it and get towards the bigger battles clouding their judgement?
Button the only challenger ahead of Webber and Alonso
Jenson Button, Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso filled the rest of the top 10 in second, third and fourth respectively. Despite a heroic last dash to the finish where he was lapping nearly 2 seconds quicker than Vettel, Button had a fairly quiet run to second place.
It was annoying that the Williams pair got in the way in the closing laps, but even Jenson admitted they didn’t really have the pace to win. Despite this he notched up his fourth consecutive finish ahead of his team mate Hamilton, something that will not have gone unnoticed by Lewis and a cause for yet more frustration?
Mark Webber put another couple of great moves on Fernando Alonso. Lap 10 approaching turn 14 he was down the outside but Alonso resisted on rapidly decaying tyres, however a little dance and Webber was again down the outside into turn 16 and through.
Alonso got back ahead through the pit stops but after the safety car restart Webber dived down the inside at turn 10 taking the Spaniard completely by surprise. Webber charged after Button but wasn’t able to get on terms.
However, he shouldn’t have even been in that position, another poor start for Webber put him down the order. Alonso rapidly dropped back as the race drew to a close, but managed a respectable 4th.
One other notable result was Heikki Kovalain in the Lotus finishing ahead of Vitaly Petrov in the Renault on pace. Renault didn’t look comfortable all weekend, but this will be encouraging for Lotus despite only recording a 16th place position, but it’s hopeful for the future.
Singapore demonstrated just how dominant Vettel has been this year. While everyone else seems to lack consistency with their cars or themselves, Vettel has been serene. So that was Formula 1's race under the stars, fireworks exploded across the sky to Vettel's victory. He now needs only one more point in Japan to ignite a further celebration to become the youngest double world champion in history.
All photo's from autosport.com
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