Sweet success in Singapore for Vettel

Sebastian Vettel has won the Singapore Grand Prix, his sixth win of the 2013 season and third consecutive race victory. Fernando Alonso placed second with Kimi Raikkonen third.

Vettel now leads the Drivers’ World Championship by a nearly uncatchable amount; all but securing his fourth Drivers’ Championship in as many years with just six races left on the 2013 Formula 1 calendar. Though not yet impossible mathematically, Fernando Alonso would have to win all six of the remaining races whilst Vettel not finish any with a single point for Alonso to have a fighting chance at the Championship.

The race got off to a clean start with Vettel losing his first place position just briefly going into turn one when Nico Rosberg looked to have successfully overtaken the three times World Champion. But running wide, Vettel quickly took the lead back from Rosberg as the pair rounded turn two. All drivers looked to attack the first lap aggressively but remarkably there were no collisions or cars coming into contact with each other over the course of lap one – a rarity in Singapore considering the tight Monaco-esque style street circuit.

By the end of the first lap, Vettel was already leading the pack by just under two seconds from second placed Nico Rosberg. Fernando Alonso also had another strong start, launching himself up the outside right lane and quickly overtaking Romain Grosjean for third going into the first corner.

21 of the 22 cars starting the race, including all drivers in the top ten, started on the Pirelli supersoft compound with Adrian Sutil being the exception. Kimi Raikkonen was the first to stop for a new set of tyres just 11 laps into the race, stopping for a second set of the supersofts.

Race leader Sebastian Vettel stopped for the first time of the race on lap 18, but well ahead of the pack, the lead was never under threat at Vettel let the pit lane well ahead of second placed Rosberg, who had already 21 laps of the race, getting himself ahead of Alonso and into third place for a few laps, before pitting and ultimately re-joining the race in thirteenth.

For the last 5 years of racing in Singapore there has been a Safety Car required at some point or another and this year was to be no different. On lap 25 of the race, Daniel Ricciardo locked up his brakes and hit the barrier at turn 17 resulting in the sixth Safety Car in six years. Lasting six laps, Webber and Hamilton were able to jump Alonso for third place.

With racing back underway to start lap 31, Vettel picked up where he left off, regaining a lead of over 6 seconds on Rosberg just two laps into the restart. This left Rosberg, Webber, Hamilton and Alonso to battle it out for the remaining two positions on the podium. On lap 38 Romain Grosjean’s race weekend came to a premature end when he was forced to retire with a mechanical failure.

Pitting on lap 41, Mark Webber was the first of the ‘front-runners’ to stop for a final tyre stint, re-joined the race in thirteenth place after a stint of 28 laps on the medium compound. Nico Rosberg was called to ‘box’ just one lap later for his stint on the medium compound with just 19 laps left in the race but Mercedes were unable to get Rosberg back on track in front of Webber, ultimately costing Rosberg a valuable place on track.

Lewis Hamilton stopped from second place on lap 44 for his medium Pirelli tyres, leaving the door open again for Alonso to regain second place and push Vettel for first. Vettel continued to hold a thirty second gap ahead of Alonso though and would pit for his final stop at the end of lap 44. An immaculate 2.8 second stop from the Red Bull team later and Sebastian Vettel re-joined the race well ahead of second placed Alonso, his lead never really under threat.

From there the pack was left to battle for the remaining top ten positions; a particular battle of interest focused on Kimi Raikkonen, who was still fighting back pain, attacking the McLaren of Jenson Button for third place at the time. In a stunning side-by-side move, Raikkonen passed Button on the outside going through turn 14, taking third place from the McLaren driver as the race was winding down.

As the 2013 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix came to a close under the dark of night, Jenson Button’s race went from bad to worse, falling from third place to seventh in a handful of laps as his tyres simply fell away.

Mark Webber also had a hugely disappointing end to his last Singapore Grand Prix as a Formula 1 driver. With just three laps to go, the team told Webber to short shift as the gearbox appeared to be struggling. On the final lap of the race, Webber’s gearbox would give out, leaving those behind to easily overtake. Webber would then pull his car over as the gearbox burst in to flames. His retirement came just a few corners from the chequered flag.

Sebastian Vettel won the race almost half a minute ahead of second placed Fernando Alonso, with Kimi Raikkonen just behind in third. Running strongly in the first half of the race, Nico Rosberg would finish in fourth place with teammate Lewis Hamilton in fifth. Massa, Button, Perez, Hulkenberg and Sutil made up the remaining top ten positions.

The Formula 1 calendar resumes two weeks from now on the weekend of October 04 – 06 for the 2013 Formula 1 Korean Grand Prix.