He'll have to wait at least one more race – Sebastian Vettel's near-perfect grand prix weekend was almost matched by the superb Jenson Button under the lights in Singapore.
Vettel led from his 13th pole of the season from 14 races to the chequered flag, but had to withstand a late attempt by McLaren driver Button to catch him. Vettel now requires just one point from the last five grands prix to secure back-to-back titles, with Button the only man mathematically in with a chance of stopping him, as long as the 2009 world champion wins all five races and Vettel fails to score a single point.
Vettel was comfortably ahead in a surprisingly attrition-free Singapore Grand Prix – statistically there is 100 per cent chance of a safety car period in this race since its inception in 2008, largely due to restricted access to the street circuit to clear incidents – but Michael Schumacher’s misjudgement of Sergio Perez’s braking point on lap 30 saw the seven-time world champion thump his Mercedes into the Mexican’s Sauber, get airborne and smash into the barriers in a customary blizzard of carbon-fibre, though Schumacher fortunately emerged unscathed.
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Out came the safety car, and though Vettel’s advantage then of course disappeared as the field bunched up – made worse for the frustrated Vettel by Bernd Mäylander having to slow the pack even more to make way for the medical car – once racing resumed the German quickly stretched his lead again.
Red Bull did suffer a brief scare towards the end as it looked as if they might need to pit their drivers for fresh rubber while McLaren and Button, famously kind to his tyres, might make his set last to the flag, but once Jenson was forced to come in, Vettel no longer needed to build the estimated 29-second lead to stay in front after the pitstop to deny the Englishman victory. Though Button did make late inroads, a potentially internecine battle between Williams team-mates Rubens Barrichello and Pastor Maldonado, a lap down on the leaders, held Button up and gave Vettel breathing space.
Mark Webber recovered from a poor start off the front row to regain the initiative with a brilliant pass on Fernando Alonso, but though he made the most of the safety car situation to change tyres, the Australian lost the place back to the Spaniard – so he simply bided his time and passed Alonso again as the 2005 and ’06 world champion came up against traffic in the form of fellow countryman Jaime Alguersuari.
Sadly for Toro Rosso driver Alguersuari, he failed to finish the race, spinning and thumping the barriers with just a couple of laps remaining, meaning that the race effectively ended there and then as the double waved yellow flags saw the leaders virtually home and hosed.
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With the despondent Alonso, winner just a year ago, finishing a distant fourth, fifth place another 12 seconds adrift went to Lewis Hamilton, who on another day might have been pleased with that, but who suffered another torrid race that raised more questions about his temperament and about the fairness of the stewarding decisions that have dogged him throughout 2011. It did seem a trifle harsh that his collision with Felipe Massa’s Ferrari landed him yet another drivethrough penalty when similar ‘racing incidents’ elsewhere were allowed to remain just that, without penalty – a Nico Rosberg/Sergio Perez collision that saw the pair bang wheels and Perez miss an apex was perhaps the most salient.
The blameless Massa did however lose out badly himself with a right-rear puncture, though the angry Brazilian very publicly received short shrift when he tried to speak to Hamilton about it in the press area after the race – seemingly Hamilton, with another broken front wing and another penalty to his name, had had enough, and told Massa so.
Further back, Paul Di Resta continued to impress with a sixth place, the last man on-track not to be lapped by the leader, while team-mate Adrian Sutil was eighth, Rosberg’s Mercedes finishing in between the Force India pair. Massa claimed ninth after his incident-packed grand prix, while Perez took the last point on offer.
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