Sebastian Vettel wins Singapore for 4th time

Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari deservedly won the F1 Singapore Grand Prix 2015 as he led from the Pole for his race win. It was his third race win in 2015 season and his 4th at Singapore. No other driver has won as many races in Singapore. It was also his 42nd race win, which is one more than Aryton Senna. Michael Schumacher is the man with the maximum number of race wins.

Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull gave him stiff competition and finished in second position. He was just 1.4 seconds behind Vettel. Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari came in third with a massive 17 seconds behind.

Nico Rosberg of Mercedes came in 4th to reduce the lead of his teammate Lewis Hamilton in the championship race. Valtteri Bottas of Williams was 5th. He could safely finish his race, though his team found that he had a problem in downshifting his gears. Daniil Kvyat of Red Bull finished in 6th position.

Sergio Perez of Force India was 7th. Verstappen of Toro Rosso finished 8th. He was followed by Carlos Sainz in 9th and Felipe Nasr in 10th.

It was a disastrous outing for the reigning World Champion Lewis Hamilton as he lost power in the 26th lap and then after slowly circling around the circuit, he had to quit in Lap 34.

Former World Champion Fernando Alonso too retired from the race in Lap 34 when he was running in 9th position.

Pastor Maldonado had a crash with Jenson Button of McLaren and for that Button had to come to the pits to change the front wing and lose valuable time. Button made his disgust apparent when he uttered into the radio “I should have known really, that he is mental”. However, there was no penalty by the stewards. Later in Lap 53, McLaren told Jenson Button that they have to retire his car as his gear box is at risk. With that both the McLaren cars retired in the race. This was not the first time this year but the fourth time when both the McLaren-Honda cars have retired.

In the Lap 37 there was a man on the circuit who was spotted by Sebastian Vettel. The man appeared to quickly jump back over the barriers. Yellow flags were waved. However, it is not a great sight for safety of the race.

Nico Hulkenberg of Force India caused an accident with Felipe Massa of Williams. Both were exiting the pit lane and in the incident Nico Hulkenberg hit the wall and retired from the race. The stewards handed him a 3 place grid penalty for the next race.

Later Massa too retired his car.

Final Results at Singapore F1 Grand Prix 2015

Vettel wins Pole at Singapore F1 Qualifying

Sebastian Vettel wins Pole at Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix 2015

The Singapore F1 Grand Prix was a very interesting qualifying event as for the first time this season, the Mercedes cars were not dominating. Sebastian Vettel won the pole position with a stunning time of 1m 43.885 seconds. His former teammate Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull qualified on second with a time of 1m 44.428seconds. Kimi Raikkonen of Ferarri came third with a time of 1m 44.667 seconds.

Daniel Kvyat of Red Bull was 4th with a time of 1m 44.745seconds. Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes could only score 1m 45.300 seconds in his second run in Q3 as he ran wide during his first run and aborted the first run. His teammate Nico Rosberg of Mercedes came in 6th with a time of 1m 45. 415seconds. Valtteri Bottas of Williams will start on the 4th row tomorrow as he qualified at P7 with a time of 1m 45.676. He was followed by Verstappen of Toro Rosso with a time of 1m 45.798seconds.

Felipe Massa of Williams and Romain Grosjean of Lotus came in 9th and 10th respectively.

The Ferrari and the Red Bull cars and Verstappen were on the new supersoft tyres for the final run in Q3. All others were on used super soft tyres.

Did any one think that a McLaren can be ahead of a Mercedes. Precisely that had happened in the Q1 of the Formula One qualifying at Singapore Grand Prix.

During the Q1 where the drivers scramble to set their times in a 18 minute long session and the best 13 qualify for the second stage, Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso were ahead of Lewis Hamilton at one stage.

This forced Hamilton, who was in 14th, to go for another run with supersoft tyres to score a 1m 45.765 seconds and that lifted him to provisional P2 and helped qualify for Q2. Ofcourse when the drivers went for their second laps in the Q1, Jenson Button had gone down and could barely manage getting relegated as he scored a P15 in the Q1 and the difference between him and 16th placed Felipe Nasr with 1m 46.965 was a measly 0.074 seconds.

In the Q2 of the Qualifying, every driver choose supersoft tyres. Carlos Sainz hit the wall and brought out a Yellow flag when the drivers were trying to scramble through in the dying seconds of Q2. So the drivers who were in the 11th to 15th in the previous run just couldn't complete their laps. So Nico Hulkenberg was 11th. Fernando Alonso of McLaren will start alongside him in the sixth row tomorrow as he qualified in 12th position. Sergio Perez of Force India was 13th, Carlos Sainz of Toro Rosso was 14th and Jenson Button of McLaren will start on 15th.

Before this qualifying it was expected that Lewis Hamilton will match the record of most consecutive pole positions of Aryton Senna and also will win the race and match Senna's record of 41 race victories. However, Hamilton coming 5th in the qualifying resulted in that dream going sour.

Singapore F1 Qualifying 2015

Lewis Hamilton wins Singapore F1 race to lead Championship

Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes did some superb driving to win the Singapore F1 race. Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull finished in 2nd followed by his teammate Daniel Ricciardo in 3rd. Fernando Alonso finished a close 4th.

It was double luck for Lewis Hamilton as he not only won the Singapore F1 race but also now leads the championship by 3 points as Nico Rosberg retired from the race due to car issues. Readers may remember that Nico Rosberg had purposefully hit Hamilton from behind at Spa forcing Hamilton to retire. Before this race Hamilton was behind Rosberg by 22 points. After all what goes around comes around.

Sebastian Vettel seemed to take benefit of an apparent starting weakness of Daniel Ricciardo as he overtook Ricciardo before going into turn 1. Fernando Alonso had a great start and took the 2nd position but he appeared to handle back the 2nd position to Vettel because Alonso perhaps feared the wrath of the stewards as he had cut a corner and seemingly gained an advantage. Since then it was a good race between Vettel and Alonso and Daniel Ricciardo.

However, it was not easy for Lewis Hamilton to just race away from the pole to victory as Singapore F1 race has got the record of having a Safety Car deployment in every race as inevitably one or the other car gets damaged and brings out the safety car. The safety car moves ahead of the F1 cars at a much slower pace than F1 cars are used to, so that stewards can clean the track during that time. In the 31st lap the safety car was out as Sergio Perez had his front wing get under his car after a wheel to wheel in turn 8 with former Force India driver Adrian Sutil, who is now driving a Sauber. Force India would be worried as they are on a tight constructors championship battle.

Lewis Hamilton informed Mercedes over the radio that he might have picked up some debris strewn on the track. His rivals Alonso, Ricciardo, Raikkonen quickly went to the pits to change tyres while Hamilton stayed ahead. The safety car cut down Hamilton’s lead. Fortunately for Hamilton, he had used 4 kgs less fuel than his immediate rival Vettel. So immediately after the Safety Car period was over in Lap 38, Hamilton started at a fast pace. In Lap 39 he had opened a gap of 3.2 seconds over Vettel. In Lap 41 he had increased the gap to 7.6 seconds. The gap kept on increasing every lap to 9.7s, 11.5s, 13.5s, 15.6s, 17.3s by lap 46.. Mercedes wanted to pit him around lap 50, however that was perhaps ambitious as the speed of Hamilton started coming down. Considering that the time to change for tyres in a pit stop is around 29 seconds in Singapore, Mercedes wanted Hamilton to have alteast 26 seconds lead over Vettel before coming to pits. Despite Hamilton saying that his tyres are worn out, Mercedes coaxed him to continue till Hamilton said that his tyres could explode at any moment. So Hamilton finally pit in lap 52 and it was a good decision as Hamilton emerged behind Vettel in second position and overtook him for the race lead in Lap 54. Through this race, Lewis Hamilton showed that he is not a world champion by just sitting and driving a fast car but also by showing tremendous ability to master adverse situations.

Felipe Massa of Williams finished in 5th position.

There was some good overtaking by Jean-Eric Vergne in the penultimate lap as he drove past Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas. However, he had a 5 second penalty slapped on him which was added to his race timing and still he finished in 6th position. Sergio Perez overtook Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari and finished in 7th which was not expected as he had that problem of front nose going under the body and starting the safety car period. Kimi Raikkonen finished in 8th followed by Nico Hulkenberg of Force India in 9th and Magnussen of McLaren got the last points paying position of 10th.

Valtteri Bottas who so bravely was driving in 6th position till very close to the end, completely lost his tyres as he had his last pit stop in 23rd lap. If the safety car would have lasted a couple of more laps and he should have been fine.

Pastor Maldonado and Romain Grosjean of Lotus finished in 12th and 13th. Kvyat of Toro Rosso finished 8 places down on his teammate in 14th. Ericsson of Caterham beat the two Marussias to finish in 15th. Jules Bianchi lead his teammate Max Chilton to 16th and 17th place finishes.

Due to the Safety Car this race could not finish it’s normal race duration as the two hour time limit was just reached.

Retirements in Singapore F1 Grand Prix

Jenson Button           McLaren          52^nd lap

Adrian Sutil                Sauber            40^th lap

Esteban Gutierrez      Sauber            17^th lap

Nico Rosberg               Mercedes       13^th lap

Kamui Kobayashi       Caterham        0

Lewis Hamilton grabs Singapore Pole

Lewis Hamilton grabs pole in Singapore F1 Qualifying

It was an interesting battle in Singapore. For the first time the dominance of Mercedes was challenged in Singapore. And Lewis Hamilton showed lot of character to grab the pole by 0.007s off Nico Rosberg, despite driving a mishandling car and suffering a big lockup during his run. Mercedes was no where in the competition till the last run in Q3.

During Q3, that is the top-ten shoot out, it was not a great beginning for the Mercedes drivers as Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg finished 6th and 7th during their first runs. However, fortunately Hamilton could do a brilliant second run and grab the pole.

Daniel Ricciardo finished in third position just ahead of his team-mate Sebastian Vettel.

Ferrari was appearing to be doing well. Unfortunately Kimi Raikkonen faced a problem as his engine appeared to die on him during his outlap but was still classified at 7th. His team-mate Fernando Alonso finished in 5th followed by Felipe Massa of Williams in 6th.

Valtteri Bottas of Williams scored P8. He was followed by Magnussen of Mclaren and Kvyat of Toro Rosso qualified in 10th position.

In the Q1, it was Raikkonen of Ferrari who topped the time sheets. At the bottom of the grid, there was a huge difference between the Caterham drivers as Marcus Ericsson came last and was nearly 2 seconds slower than his 20th placed team mate Kamui Kobayashi. They were separated by Max Chilton on Marussia in 21st position. Jules Bianchi of Marussia came 19th. Pastor Maldonado of Lotus joined them in 18th position and Adrian Sutil of Sauber in 17th to get relegated.

Maldonado’s teammate Romain Grosjean didn’t fare much better as he finished in 16th position despite qualifying for the Q2. Sergio Perez of Force India could only finish in 15th. His teammate Nico Hulkenberg finished in 13th. The duo being separated by Esteban Gutierrez in 14th position. Jean-Eric Vergne who has been dropped by Toro Rosso team for the 2015 season claimed the 12th spot. Former world Champion Jenson Button failed to qualify for the Q1 top ten shootout as he finished in 11th position. It would be pretty painful for Jenson Button as his younger teammate out-qualified him. Jenson Button doesn’t have a contract for the next year. And if McLaren thinks that Button is slowing down, then they may get someone in his place next year. This should be clear later during the year.

Vettel consolidates lead with Singapore F1 win

Sebastian Vettel wins Singapore F1 Grand Prix 2013, consolidates lead

Sebastian Vettel had lost the lead in Singapore F1 Grand Prix 2013 for a few moments during the start, but regained it and won it to consolidate his lead.

As a consolation, Fernando Alonso of Ferrari came second. The star of the race is perhaps Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus, who despite starting at 13th position due to a bad back, finished in third position. Knowing fully well that lotus is not paying him his salary and having agreed to move away to Ferrari from next year and still driving on paining killing injections to finish third is a monumental achievement.

Nico Rosberg of Mercedes who had started second, finished at P4. His teammate Lewis Hamilton finished in 5th and suffered a near fatal blow to his championship hopes. Hamilton may not admit it, however, his hopes of winning the 2013 F1 drivers championship is now as good as walking on Mars without a space suit. Hamilton is now 96 points behind vettel with only 6 races to go.

Felipe Massa of Ferrari who had qualified his teammate Fernando Alonso, finished sixth. Jenson Button of McLaren finished seventh. Button's teammate Sergio Perez finished at eighth.

Nico Hulkenberg of Sauber finished 9th and was followed by Adrian Sutil of Force India in 10th

Results of Singapore F1 Grand Prix 2013

1. Sebastian Vettel                Red bull

2. Fernando Alonso               Ferrari

3. Kimi Rainkkonen               Lotus

4. Nico Rosberg                      Mercedes

5. Lewis Hamilton                  Mercedes

6. Felipe Massa                      Ferrari

7. Jenson Button                    McLaren

8. Sergio Perez                       McLaren

9. Nico Hulkenberg               Sauber

10. Adrian Sutil                     Force India

11. Pastor Maldonado          Williams

12. Esteban Gutierrez           Sauber

13. Valtteri Bottas                 Williams

14. Jean-Eric Vergne             Toro Rosso

 15. Mark Webber                 Red Bull

16. Giedo Van der Garde      Caterham

17. Max Chilton                     Marussia

18. Jules Bianchi                    Marussia

19. Charles Pic                       Caterham

Retirements in Singapore F1 Grand Prix

Paul di Resta                          Force India

Romain Grosjean                   Lotus

Daniel Ricciardo                    Toro Rosso

Vettel wins Singapore Grand Prix as Lewis retires

Sebastian Vettel wins as Lewis retires in Singapore Grand Prix

The Formula One Singapore Grand Prix saw many crashes and accidents, but the race started without mayhem as Grosjean kept his cool after coming back from a one race ban. Lewis Hamilton started from pole and retained his position. Pastor Maldonado who started in second position was passed by Sebastian Vettel as well as Jenson Button, still he retained his cool and didn’t press the destruction button.

Still there was an incident at the back of the grid where the two Caterham driver’s collided.

There was no surprise element, as both the Mercedes cars which didn’t run on the Q3 in the qualifying also choose the Super soft tyres. Michael Schumacher was told to cool his car while his teammate overtook him.

Lewis Hamilton was unfortunate that his gearbox broke down and he had to retire.  Narain Karthikeyan who was the last person to go for his pitstop amazingly running 20 laps in his supersoft tyres, hit the barriers on lap 33 and his front right wheel came off forcing a safety car to be deployed. Immediately all the drivers who hadn’t done their pitstops choose to do so. Alonso had earlier taken his pit stop, so was Raikkonen. So they choose to stay out during the safety car period. Niko Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez didn’t choose to make their pit stops and they were the only ones to have done one stop after the safety car was taken out.

It was sad for Narain as Tata Tea had just choosen to sponsor HRT car for the Singapore as well as the Indian Grand Prix.

During the safety car period, in lap 37, Pastor Maldonado was told by his Williams team that his car had a problem and he needs to stop the car. This resulted in the both the front runners retiring from the race.

Disaster stuck again for Michael Schumacher as in lap 41 he ran into the back of Jean-Eric Vergne of Toro Rosso. So interestingly Michael Schumacher has never got any points in Singapore. The safety car was redeployed. Did Schumacher get his braking wrong like last year or was it a problem with his brakes as he locked up. Fortunately, there was no animosity displayed between Schumacher and Jean-Eric Vergne as they both patted each others back. This looks like Schumacher’s fault and this incident will be investigated after the race by stewards. It is surprising that the God of Formula One, Michael Schumacher has ran into the back of another driver twice in Singapore Grand Prix.

Towards the end there were some competitive times posted by Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button as they knew that the race will not run its full 61 laps as according to rules the race can run only for a maximum of two hours. However, Button couldn't sustain the pace and Vettel won a comfortably.

Bruno Senna who was running in at 10^th position told his team that he has a loss of power and stopped his car barely a minute before the finish.

Final Result of F1 Singapore Grand Prix 2012

1.     Sebastian Vettel

2.     Jenson Button

3.     Fernando Alonso

4.     Paul di Resta

5.     Nico Rosberg

6.     Kimi Raikkonen

7.     Romain Grosjean

8.     Felipe Massa

9.     Daniel Ricciardo

10. Mark Webber

11. Serzio Perez

12. Timo Glock

13. Kamui Kobayashi

14. Niko Hulkenberg

15. Heikki Kovalainen

16. Charles Pic

17. Pedro de la Rosa

18. Bruno Senna

19. Vitaly Petrov

Retirements in Singapore Grand Prix 2012

Michael Schumacher – Lap 41

Jean-Eric Vergne – Lap 41

Pastor Maldonado – Lap 37

Narain Karthikeyan – Lap 33

Lewis Hamilton – Lap 23