Lewis Hamilton was gifted an easy victory under lights in the Singapore Grand Prix.
At the end, Lewis Hamilton cruised to an easy victory, but for much of Sunday evening it looked anything but a foregone conclusion. Hamilton led the Singapore Grand Prix very nearly from lights to flag, but at times came under the most tremendous pressure from first Nico Rosberg and then Sebastian Vettel, but both of the young Germans would eventually make mistakes under pressure and gift the win to Hamilton. Further back, Brawn staged great recovery drives to take them to the brink of the Constructors’ Championship.
Hamilton made a good start from pole position, but Vettel got away slowly on the dirty side of the track, allowing Rosberg to slip by into second place. Fernando Alonso had his usual belter and climbed into fourth above Mark Webber; Webber fought back, but went off-track in regaining his place. He would later cede the position back to Alonso, and was forced to let Timo Glock by, too, the German having passed Alonso.
Elsewhere, Jenson Button, with a championship to claim, climbed to 10th off the start; Jarno Trulli slipped three places and Nick Heidfeld, starting from the pitlane, brought up the rear.
Romain Grosjean retired early; his Renault suffering from the braking problems that have afflicted it all weekend, but the rest of the backmarkers were in the thick of a mighty battle. Jaime Alguersuari’s Toro Rosso, at the head of a train, came under intense pressure from Adrian Sutil. The rookie held his ground.
Meanwhile, at the front, Hamilton set a string of fastest laps, finally broken when Vettel picked up the pace on lap five. The front three were pulling away, trading fastest laps. It was reported that Hamilton was having trouble with his KERS, but it didn’t seem to be slowing him down – he later explained he had to reset the unit via a series of steering wheel commands (“Like I didn’t already have enough buttons to push”). There were battles up and down the field: Kimi Räikkönen squeezed past Sébastien Buemi after the latter ran a fraction wide; Giancarlo Fisichella in the second Ferrari had his old car, now driven by Tonio Liuzzi, swarming all over him.
As expected, Vettel was the first of the leaders to stop, coming in on lap 17. Rosberg came in on the following lap, but overcooked his exit from the pits, running over the kerbs and, significantly, crossing the white line. The stewards conferred and imposed the expected drive-through penalty. He would have to wait to take it, though.
Back down the field, Sutil was still attacking Alguersuari, he drew level, they tangled and Sutil spun, but the real drama occurred as Sutil, beached on the inside of Turn 10, tried to spin back onto the track. He collected Heidfeld, battering the BMW and removing his own nosecone. With debris liberally strewn across the circuit, the safety car came out. “Maybe we can get him a brain,” deadpanned Heidfeld, walking back to the pits, when asked if BMW would demand that Sutil be punished.
Hamilton pitted before the safety car appeared, securing his lead, but things did not go so well for the Red Bull teams. Jaime Alguersuari tried to pull away before the lollipop rose, taking his fuel hose and half the crew with him. Meanwhile Webber emerged after the shake-up adrift in ninth position. After a few laps under the safety car, Sutil retired.
'I was leading by 17 points with two races to go in 2007, and I didn’t win the championship' - Lewis Hamilton
After Rosberg took his drive-through, and essentially took himself out of contention, Vettel began to close on Hamilton. The gap shrank to less than a second; the McLaren appeared to have a slight edge in the middle section of the track, the Red Bull swarmed all over it everywhere else – but Vettel was never able to construct a serious move. He came in for his final stop on lap 39, hoping to find clean air and put pressure on Hamilton that way. It was a faint hope that turned to no-hope when he broke the pitlane speed limit and subsequently had to take a drive-through penalty like Rosberg before him.
It wasn’t a good few minutes for Red Bull. Webber pitted soon afterwards, with the team paying particularly close attention to his right-front brake disc. One lap later it seemed to fail at the end of the pit straight; the Australian slewed wildly off line and went into the barriers backwards. Shortly afterwards, both Toro Rossos were called in to the garage to retire – Buemi losing fuel pressure and Alguersuari with braking issues.
Hamilton was in the clear and, as often seems to happen in a chaotic race, Timo Glock emerged with a podium – this time it was second place, but far enough behind the leader not to be a threat. Alonso was in third and Vettel had re-emerged in fourth. Behind them, Button had dragged himself up into fifth, one crucial place ahead of team-mate and championship rival Rubens Barrichello. Barrichello had led Button for most of the race, but had slow laps preceding his final stop. Heikki Kovalainen, in the second McLaren, held seventh, and BMW's Robert Kubica eighth.
The result leaves Brawn 42.5pts clear of Red Bull Racing in the Constructors’ Championship and Button 15 clear of Barrichello in the Drivers’. With races running out fast, the season appears to be winding down to an anticlimax, but Hamilton, the man of the moment, grinned when asked if he thought it was all over. “I was leading by 17pts with two races to go in 2007, and I didn’t win the championship – so there’s still a lot that can happen.”
Comments
Add a comment