Hamilton Races to a comfortable victory in Singapore

Lewis Hamilton raced to a scintillating victory at the Singapore Grand Prix leading the championship battle ahead of teammate Nico Rosberg. The latter missed pole position by just 0.007 seconds and it was well anticipated that the race will witness an intense battle between the two Mercedes drivers.

Nico’s woes started before the race when an electrical issue required his steering wheel to be changed. Nico had to start the race from the pitlane where he couldn’t pull away from the grid for the formation lap unaided. This gave Hamilton the opportunity to sprint to pole and lead the race while being hounded by RedBull racing’s Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.

Alonso briefly moved up second but outbraked moving on the run-off area to control his machine in process giving Vettel the second spot. Meanwhile Rosberg faced issues with his DRS, energy recovery system and gearbox eventually retiring after lap 13.

With Rosberg out of the race Hamilton had a clear path ahead of him until the deployment of the safety car joepardised his position. Team ordered him to continue racing though he was on soft compounds. Hamilton started hammering fastest laps till he built a lead of nine seconds over Vettel so as to get ample window for a pitstop.

As Vettel claimed the lead, Hamilton fended Ricciardo to take lead again as the fresh set of tyres helped him gain a margin of 13.5 seconds.

Alonso jumped Vettel at the second round of stops conceding his position behind the safety car. He patiently waited for the Redbull’s tyres to degrade, however the Austrian bulls put up a fight to finish on the podium.

Felipee Massa repassed Kimi Raikkonen to end at a lonely fifth while Jean Eric Vergne finished his season’s best by coming in at a seventh inspite of being penalized for five seconds twice for exceeding track limits.

Results

Pos	Driver	Car	Gap
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	2h00m04.795s
2	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull/Renault	13.534s
3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/Renault	14.273s
4	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	15.389s
5	Felipe Massa	Williams/Mercedes	42.161s
6	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso/Renault	56.801s
7	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	59.038s
8	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1m00.641s
9	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India/Mercedes	1m01.661s
10	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren/Mercedes	1m02.230s
11	Valtteri Bottas	Williams/Mercedes	1m05.065s
12	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus/Renault	1m06.915s
13	Romain Grosjean	Lotus/Renault	1m08.029s
14	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m12.008s
15	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham/Renault	1m34.188s
16	Jules Bianchi	Marussia/Ferrari	1m34.543s
17	Max Chilton	Marussia/Ferrari	1 Lap
-	Jenson Button

McLaren/Mercedes

Electrical

-

Adrian Sutil

Sauber/Ferrari

Water leak

-

Esteban Gutierrez

Sauber/Ferrari

Electrical

-

Nico Rosberg

Mercedes

Steering wheel

-

Kamui Kobayashi

Caterham/Renault

Not started

Drivers' championship

Pos	Driver	Points
1	Lewis Hamilton	241
2	Nico Rosberg	238
3	Daniel Ricciardo	181
4	Fernando Alonso	133
5	Sebastian Vettel	124
6	Valtteri Bottas	122
7	Jenson Button	72
8	Nico Hulkenberg	72
9	Felipe Massa	65
10	Sergio Perez	45
11	Kimi Raikkonen	45
12	Kevin Magnussen	39
13	Jean-Eric Vergne	19
14	Romain Grosjean	8
15	Daniil Kvyat	8
16	Jules Bianchi	2
17	Adrian Sutil	0
18	Marcus Ericsson

0

19

Pastor Maldonado

0

20

Esteban Gutierrez

0

21

Max Chilton

0

22

Kamui Kobayashi

0

Source : CarDekho