Sebastian Vettel won his third Grand Prix of the Formula One season in the Singapore Grand Prix, moving him up to third on the all time winners list, surpassing Ayrton Senna's record of 41 victories.
After taking pole on Saturday, the German dominately led from start-to-finish to claim his fourth victory around the Marina Bay circuit. Despite two safety car periods Vettel went relatively unchallenged from Daniel Ricciardo, with the midfield providing most of the action.
Shades of 2013 Vettel
In shades akin to last year's race, whilst leaving the pit-lane the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg suffered from technical software issues with car, although the team rectified the problem and Rosberg evantaully finished fourth.
When the famous five red lights went out, it was Vettel who comfortably led away from Pole and with the exception of the Toro Rosso of Max Verstappen, who stalled, all got away clearly. Surprisingly nobody went wide into the first corner, prehaps the fact that to stop drivers running wide into the first turn, as has happened every year, they would have to drive round a bollard and lose time deterred some.
Force India's Sergio Perez brilliantly avoided a clash with his teammate, Nico Hulkenberg early on in the opening lap, whilst the marshalls tried to push the stricken car of Verstappen of the grid before the first of 61 laps were completed. When Vettel did complete his first lap he was a startling three seconds up on Ricciardo. In the opening laps Vettel was pushing so hard that it was a flashback to his dominant victory in 2013 around the streets.
World Champion Lewis Hamilton, starting a lowly fifth, was among those who were intially 'holding station' early on - looking after the car without pushing too hard, ahead of teammate Rosberg and the Williams duo of Felipe Massa and Valterri Bottas. The two Force India's rounded out the top 10.
Lotus's Romain Grosjean, in an attempt to undercut the McLaren of Fernando Alonso made the first pit-stop on lap 11. Despite the Spainard emerging in front on the next lap around, the Frenchman, down 'Raffles Boulevard', with DRS overtook to gain the place.
On Lap 13 when Massa exited the pit-lane, drama ensued. Having pitted the lap before to try and undercut Massa, Hulkenberg emerged side-by-side with the Brazilian. As the German turned into the first corner, he hit Massa and spun across the track into the T3 barriers opposite. As a result the Virtual Safety Car was deployed so debris and the stricken car could be cleared up. It was soon upgraded to full Safety Car which kept up the circuit's 100% record of safety car deployment. Hulkenberg was later issued by the stewards with a three-place grid drop for Japan.
Throughout the first round of pitstops and throughout the race there were many examples of drivers suffering from slow pit-stops with Jenson Button at one of his stops being stationery for 40 seconds. Also under the turn 17 bridge many drivers including Alonso, and Carlos Sainz suffered from gearbox gremlins. It is thought that the Singapore subway may have something to do with the issue although no-one is quite sure. Massa evantually retired with a gearbox issue, with it stuck in neutral.
After the restart Vettel didn't pull away as he had done so originally. Many thought this was a ploy to help back the close behind Ricciardo into Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen. Hamilton who had jumped Red Bull's Danill Kvyat in the pit-stops to fourth confirmed over team radio that "Vettel is backing up Ricciardo" as the off the pace Mercedes, on the Prime tyre was starting to catch the three option shod cars ahead as a result. It wasn't too last too long however.
Ferrari were playing cautious on the strategy to try and eek out a two stop race. Consequently Vettel was drving to conserve his tyres. Mercedes thought that by them being on the faster SuperSoft tyre for the final stint and Ferrari and Red Bull on the slower Option tyre they would be in place to potentially win the race. Shortly afterward though the Mercedes of Hamilton hit trouble.
On Lap 26 the Brit reported over radio that "I've lost power guys, lost power". Race engineer Pete Bonnington over the course of the next seven laps repeatedly gave Hamiltion instructions to change settings on his steering wheel to try to counter a throttle problem. After no luck, Hamilton advised the team "to save the engine" and for him to retire. When he did it marked the end of a miserable weekend for the team, with them struggling for tyre temparatue and being outpaced by both Ferrari and Red Bull.
“There is a fan on the track”
In bizzare scenes on Lap 36 the safety car was once again deployed, but with seemingly no cause. The TV feed cut to the Andersen Bridge but there was no incident, or so it seemed. To the right of the picture there was a fan walking alongside barrier seemingly unaware of his extremely dangerous surroundings. Unlike Germany 2000 or Britain 2003, there was no clear point to the track incursion.
Leader Vettel, bemused by what he had just seen exclaimed "there is a fan on the track, a fan on the track" and Ricciardo said after the race that he drove past and did a double-take before saying "there's a guy walking down the track".
Coming into the weekend McLaren were confident of a strong result after the struggles of Spa and Monza. Alonso was well in the points when he suffered a gearbox issue and had to retire for the seventh time in 12 starts.
Teammate Button, seemed to have taken over from Raikkonen as entertainer over team radio. It is unlikely that the Brit will be on the grid in 2016. He remarked back to his team on numerous occassions with sarcastic one liners such as " do you want to rub my tummy" and "anything else".
After a clash with Pastor Maldonado in which he lost half his front wing Button quipped "its about what you'd expect" as he thought the Venezuelan could've acclerated faster. Button too retired with a gearbox issue. The team desparately need a lift in Japan and in the closing stages of the season.
In his first Grand Prix, American Alexander Rossi was doing an outstanding job for the Manor team driving with no radio. After his crash in practice on Friday , it was a great feat for the driver to finish P14, ahead of his teammate Will Stevens.
As the race at the front settled down, the final laps were dominated by both Lotus running into problems and the storming drives of the Toro Rosso duo. After his stalled start Verstappen was hot on Perez's heels. With a handful of laps left the young flying Dutchman was ordered twice to let his teammate behind trough, which he quite bluntly exclaimed "NO!"
After this miny drama the race finished with Vettel winning for the 42nd time, and along with his victories in Malaysia and Hungary for the third time in 2015. Daniel Ricciardo claimed his second podium of the season, Kimi Raikkonen returned to the podium also for the second time in third.
Nico Rosberg finished fourth, Valterri Bottas fifth, Danill Kvyat sixth, Sergio Perez again scored well in seventh, fending off Max Verstappen- eigth and Carlos Sainz nineth. For the first time since Monaco Sauber's Felipe Nasr scored points with a P10 finish.
What with Mercedes suffering from recent unreliability and Vettel, hitting a purple patch of form it remains to be seen ether the German can chase down Hamilton and claim the most unlikely of of World Championships.