Vettel takes Singapore win while Mercedes flounder

Star of the race

Sebastian Vettel was brilliant, from a fantastic pole position where he lapped half a second quicker than anyone else to a brilliant race performance where he controlled from the front to take his third win of the year for Ferrari and the 42nd of his career.

In the run up to this modern classic under the lights, all the talk in Singapore was of Lewis Hamilton matching Ayrton Senna's career statistics of 41 wins from 161 starts. But Mercedes were nowhere all weekend, not just behind the Ferrari's but behind the Red Bull's too. Hamilton eventually retired to remain on 40 wins, but it was Vettel, nine career starts behind Lewis who actually overtook Senna's 41 wins to line up third in the all time list behind just Michael Schumacher and Alain Prost.

Someone who has the potential to create his own incredible statistics is a young 17 year old driving for Toro Rosso called Max Verstappen. The hype surrounding this kid has been immense all year. It's thoroughly justified although it does obscure the fact that his equally talented but ever so much older team mate Carlos Sainz (a positively ancient 20 years old) is driving just as well in his rookie campaign.

It's Verstappen with the headlines though and on the strength of this performance it is totally deserved. Aggression, on the edge, sublime passing moves, incredible speed mixed up with a bit of selfishness that characterises many of the greats of the past, his first Singapore Grand Prix was brilliant. 

He was hooked up around this tight street circuit immediately. It is one of the toughest races of the year often going up to the race time limit of two hours, 61 laps of constant direction change trapped between unforgiving concrete walls under intense heat and humidity that would sap the energy of any high performance athlete. 

It all came so naturally to Verstappen, he put his car up against the walls, skimming the paint work, always pushing. He qualified just eighth but possibly could have been mixing it with the struggling Mercedes cars. Off the start there was nothing, everyone luckily avoided him and by the time he got going after he was pushed into the pit lane he was a lap down.

A safety car on lap 12 caused by Felipe Massa's Williams and Nico Hulkenberg's Force India colliding as Massa came out of the pit lane enabled him to unlap himself. Hulkenberg got a 3 place grid penalty for Japan although a bit undeserved. From then on it was charging all the way. A second safety car was scrambled after a lunatic man crossed the track and decided to stroll down as cars sped past at nearly a couple of hundred miles an hour. He was later arrested. 

This helped Verstappen more, but it was the way he scythed through the field and how he managed his super soft tyres on his last stint that was so impressive. His move on Romain Grosjean's Lotus was great to watch and enabled him to hunt down Sergio Perez's Force India, but he couldn't pass the Mexican and finished eighth. He was the most lively entertaining driver on the track. Perhaps sometimes he's too on the limit, there are definitely some rough edges that need to be smoothed down but it was a great performance nevertheless.

In ninth came his team mate Carlos Sainz who also suffered trouble when his car lapsed into neutral at the second safety car restart losing him a lot of places. His recovery was just as good in its own way, but by then he was following Verstappen. His team actually asked Verstappen to move out of the way to allow Sainz through to attack Perez, something the Dutchman refused to do. In the end his team boss backed his decision. When all the world is praising your team mate and backing him up when he defies team orders, it can't be easy on Sainz who has been the unluckier driver this year but has often shown equal speed. 

But there's something about Verstappen, it may seem to be adding enormous pressure to the shoulders of someone so young when talking of him not taking long to get to 41 wins as well, but he's shown already this season, he can handle it.

The winner

So up at the front Vettel did lead. His scarlet Ferrari looked beautifully on the limit under the lights, there isn't one person on the grid who has taken on the challenge of this track as well as the four time world champion. Winning three on the bounce from 2011, he even led last seasons race at one point in a year full of strife. It was no surprise to see him in the mix again this time round.

But the dominance was what was so surprising. The fact he led so well and so easily was startling. No one expected Mercedes to be so humbled this year but they were nowhere. It was Vettel's former team mate at Red Bull Daniel Ricciardo who led the charge behind.

I think it could have been a closer race without the safety car periods, both coming at a pit stop time that may have skewed the result slightly. It's by no means certain but Red Bull had some serious race pace and were looking after the tyres better than anyone. As the first stint drew to a close, Ricciardo was closing Vettel down.

The Ferrari driver had streaked off into the distance in the first couple of laps. Actually that's a bit of a Vettel trademark, usually before he backs off and controls the race. This time though, it looked like he may have taken too much out of his tyres, Ricciardo was catching but then came the Massa Hulkenberg incident and the stint was cut short as everyone dived for fresh rubber.

This time Vettel was cannier, taking it easy and backing Ricciardo and his Ferrari team mate Raikkonen up. It even began to make Hamilton, sitting two seconds back in fourth, believe he could have a chance at the victory as he had taken the opposite strategy to the front runners and taken on soft tyres leaving the final stint to the super softs where techically he would have a pace advantage.

In reality Ferrari and Red Bull had too much for the silver cars this weekend. After he'd trundled around for several laps Vettel bolted and opened up a gap as easy as you like. Ricciardo responded but he couldn't keep up. It was good race from the Aussie, but he probably didn't quite have the speed to properly challenge. Kimi couldn't match his team mate but still claimed his second podium of the season with third. Meanwhile Sebastian had this race in his grasp and he wasn't about to let it go.

It would have been interesting to see how the race might have played out without the safety cars but I think Vettel had the Red Bull covered to take a fine win that gives him just a glimmer of hope in the title chase.

The battles

The Singapore circuit has always been a bit difficult to pass on and in truth this race was a bit processional, but there was plenty going on with the safety cars and for some reason there were also a lot of pit stop problems for the teams with wheel guns jamming and several cars appeared to have electrical problems when their cars went into neutral. 

Still there were a number of trains built up in the early stages with Nico Rosberg holding up several cars and Fernando Alonso doing the same a bit further down.

As mentioned the Toro Rosso drivers provided plenty of entertainment as did the Sauber's and the Lotus'. McLaren's Jenson Button hit Pastor Maldonado as they battled after the safety car restart, something which Button firmly pinned on the Venezuelan.

The race was shaping up nicely after the first safety car as Vettel held up the pack. It was a shame Hamilton's car developed a loss of power as it would have been interesting to see what happened as he lay fourth. He dropped down the field quickly and retired for the first time this year. 

In a way it was fortunate for Lewis that his Mercedes team were off the pace this weekend as it meant Nico Rosberg only claimed fourth to get just 12 points back in the championship. Valtteri Bottas plugged away for Williams to take fifth as his team mate Massa retired due to electrical problems. Daniil Kvyat in the second Red Bull had qualified fourth but lost out in a big way during the pit stops to finish a disappointing sixth. Perez held off the hard charging Toro Rosso's while Felipe Nasr picked up the final point for Sauber.

Things of note

So, well, Mercedes have been dominating the entire year, sometimes a second quicker than the opposition then they turn up in Singapore and qualify over 1.5 seconds off Vettel's pole position time. What happened? Well I'm not sure, and neither I think are the team. The drivers reported no problems with the car, it seems they simply didn't have the pace.

There are theories that the controversial tyre pressures that were so talked about at Monza might have played their part. It's also true that this is not a power track so they couldn't use their number one weapon. But their chassis is brilliant too and they were great around Monaco, so they should have been good around here too.

Ferrari have put a whole bunch of new parts on their car, while Red Bull's power deficit wasn't going to hurt them so much here and as Ricciardo has said, they've been improving the car a lot since Hungary. It seems while those teams were having a very good weekend Mercedes were just having a very off weekend. It'll be very interesting to see what occurs next weekend in Japan where if Mercedes are beaten again, then intrigue will increase on just what is going on. For now, this weekend can just be put down to a blip.

In the driver market it looks certain that Romain Grosjean is off to new team Haas for 2016. It has a lot of links with Ferrari and they should be well prepared so maybe it will be a good move for the future. As Lotus look increasingly like they'll be bought by Renault it also means he'll avoid having to drive one of their power units next year!

Jenson Button is making a lot of off the cuff comments about McLaren and his situation there, towing the party line in an interview with Sky before joking that he'll tell the truth once off air. He also made a few funny radio calls to the team that seemed to be saying I don't really care any more. He retired from the race after various struggles but still was in the points before his incident with Maldonado and then eventual gearbox related retirement. I don't think we'll see Jenson in Formula 1 next year and I think it's his choice too.

Alonso also retired his McLaren after running in the points but in the end it was another dismal weekend for the team who are also now facing a budget deficit for 2016. This was one of the richest teams in the sport a few years ago, always at least challenging for wins, it's a despressing sight for all concerned to see just how far they have fallen in such a short space of time. Honda show no signs of improvement, it's going to be a hard road back to the top from here.

Red Bull look set for Ferrari engines, but after challenging Ferrari for the win in Singapore with a poor engine will the Scuderia go the way of Mercedes and think why should we supply them with our power units when they could then beat us with our own equipment. I think common sense will prevail and Red Bull will get their engines. Rumours of an eventual link up with the VW/Audi group continue to grow too.


One final note, American Alexander Rossi made his debut with Marussia this weekend replacing Roberto Merhi. He did a good job, although he qualified last I don't think his lap was representative and he proved it by out racing Will Stevens who has been driving all year. 

The title chase

Hamilton may have retired but he is still 41 points ahead of Rosberg and was ahead of him when his problem struck. Rosberg isn't the problem, however Vettel has got the gap down to 49 points, under two race wins worth of points. 

If somehow Ferrari can carry this form into the next few races then from out of nowhere we have a title fight on our hands. It's a big if though, don't be surprised to see Hamilton back on the top step in Japan next Sunday.

Result

1. Vettel - Ferrari
2. Ricciardo - Red Bull
3. Raikkonen - Ferrari
4. Rosberg - Mercedes
5. Bottas - Williams
6. Kvyat - Red Bull
7. Perez - Force India
8. Verstappen - Toro Rosso
9. Sainz - Toro Rosso
10. Nasr - Sauber
11. Ericsson - Sauber
12. Maldonado - Lotus
13. Grosjean - Lotus
14. Rossi - Marussia
15. Stevens - Marussia
R. Button - McLaren - gearbox
R. Alonso - McLaren - gearbox
R. Hamilton - Mercedes - Power unit
R. Massa - Williams - power unit
R. Hulkenberg - Force India - collision

all photos taken from autosport.com