Conclusions from the Singapore Grand Prix
Under the bright lights of the Lion City, Sebastian Vettel cruised to victory in the Singapore Grand Prix to turn the F1 Championship battle into a two-horse race between himself and Fernando Alonso.
Although Lewis Hamilton led for much of the grand prix, a gearbox failure caused him to retire from the race, and with rivals Jenson Button and championship leader Fernando Alonso completing the podium, the British driver now sits 52 points behind the Spaniard with 150 left available throughout the season.
Current World Champion Vettel seemed to be certain of a second place finish as he chased Hamilton throughout a draining race, but on lap 23 Hamilton’s car lost drive, and allowed the German to secure his second victory around the Marina Bay Circuit.
Here’s what we learned during the weekend’s race in the Far East:
Although Lewis Hamilton led for much of the grand prix, a gearbox failure caused him to retire from the race, and with rivals Jenson Button and championship leader Fernando Alonso completing the podium, the British driver now sits 52 points behind the Spaniard with 150 left available throughout the season.
Current World Champion Vettel seemed to be certain of a second place finish as he chased Hamilton throughout a draining race, but on lap 23 Hamilton’s car lost drive, and allowed the German to secure his second victory around the Marina Bay Circuit.
Here’s what we learned during the weekend’s race in the Far East:
- It turned out to be an unsuccessful race for Hamilton, but his pole position helped him claim a place amongst F1’s ‘greats’. On Saturday Hamilton matched Nelson Piquet’s tally of 24 pole positions and now sits joint ninth all time in terms of first placed grid positions.
- Ø One day later Vettel continued to join the ranks of the greatest drivers ever with the 23rd win of his career. Incidentally he also matched a record held by Nelson Piquet, and with wins in any of the remaining races this season he could potentially move up from tenth all-time to seventh in terms of number of races won.
- McLaren once again failed to bring two drivers home successfully, but they managed a fourth pole position in a row helping Hamilton to the fastest time in Saturday’s qualifying session. The last time they managed that was in 1999, when they had six pole positions in a row between the British and Italian Grand Prix’s
- Hamilton’s misery was compounded by the fact that his retirement from the race means that he has had four no-scores and three wins in the last eight races. Since the German Grand Prix, his streak reads win-retire-win-retire.
- Nico Rosberg secured a fastest lap for the first time in his career at the Marina Bay Circuit, and in doing so he became the tenth driver to do so this year. This equals a record for the most different drivers to have set a fastest lap during a season, as this also occurred in 2009, 1982, 1981, 1976, 1975 and 1954.
- Although the streak of different winners was broken several races ago, no driver has managed to win two consecutive races in 14 rounds so far this year. The last time an entire season was completed without a driver winning back-to-back races was in 1974 which has fifteen Grand Prix’s in total.
- Fernando Alonso appears to enjoy the Singapore Grand Prix, and secured yet another podium finish to help his title ambitions. The Spaniard scored his fourth podium in five races in Singapore, and the only time he has failed to finish in the top three was in Singapore last year when he finished fourth.
- Paul Di Resta also enhanced his reputation as a skilled driver, and can now be ranked amongst ‘Singapore specialists’. Last year he had the best result of his rookie season at the track when he finished sixth, and this year he improved with a fourth place finish – a new personal best – and also matched his best qualifying position with sixth place.
- The Scottish driver also became the highest finishing driver from the country since David Coulthard finished third at the Canadian Grand Prix in 2009.
- Timo Glock was another to shine in Singapore, and he gave the Marussia team their best result to date with a 12th placed finish. This also improved in the best result scored by the team in its previous identity, Virgin, and it moved them back in front of Caterham in the constructor’s championship.
- In the 52 races since the ‘new’ teams arrived in F1, 12th place is the best any of them have managed. Heikki Kovalainen finished 12th for Lotus (now Caterham) at the 2010 Japanese Grand Prix.
- Singapore was the 50th start for HRT. The team has entered 52 races, but failed to qualify at Australia in 2011 and also this year in the same location.
- Michael Schumacher ‘celebrated’ his 300th start in an F1 race, but it came to a bitter end when he crashed and earned himself a ten-place penalty for the next race. His previous milestones at 100 starts and 200 starts had seen him victorious on both occasions (1997’s Japanese Grand Prix was 100, and 2004’s European Grand Prix was his 200th.
- The last driver to be celebrating a milestone of 300 GPs, Rubens Barrichello, also had his race ended by a collision.
- The race was stopped after 59 of the 61 laps under the two-hour limit rule, and this was the first race to be halted since the 2009 Malaysian Grand Prix which was red flagged and called a result based on 31 laps of a scheduled 56. On that occasion the race was stopped due to heavy rain and poor visibility.
- This was the first time that a McLaren and a Williams have shared the front row since the 2005 European Grand Prix. On that occasion Nick Heidfeld was on pole for Williams and Kimi Raikkonen started second. The first time these constructors shared the front row was in 1985 at the Austrian Grand Prix when Alain Prost took pole for Mclaren and Nigel Mansell started second for Williams.
- This was the seventh time that the Vettel-Button-Alonso combination ended on the podium. Germany 2012 was the last time with 2011 India / Japan / Hungary / Italy and Monaco all seeing those three drivers finish in the top three. These three drivers are also the last three world champions.
- Due to Hamilton’s mechanical failure, we have still yet to see a podium containing Alonso-Vettel and Hamilton.
- Singapore 2012 was the fifth race in a row that a British driver has finished on the podium. It’s the 25th time for the UK they have had a podium streak of at least five races, though the combination of Hamilton, Button and Di Resta still have some work to do if they are to break the record of fifty GPs in which they secured a podium which lasted between 1962 and 1967.
- With Webber dropping out of the points after his penalty, this became the ninth time this season a winning driver’s team mate didn’t secure a point.
- Nico Hulkenberg has the honour of becoming the 125th different driver of all-time to set a fastest lap. The last time that car number twelve set the fastest lap was Vitaly Petrov at the 2012 Turkish Grand Prix. Unfortunately he finished 14th which is the lowest finish for the fastest driver since Fernando Alonso finished 14th at the British GP in 2010.
- This is only the second time that Vettel has won a race which he did not start on the front row. The previous occasion was at Malaysia in 2010 when the German driver started third and managed to overtake both Rosberg and his team mate Webber at the first corner.
- Since Abu Dhabi 2011 when a Mclaren driver has won the race, in the following Grand Prix he has failed to score a point.
- Only on two occasions this season have Mclaren been able to get both cars in the top five. This hasn’t happened since China earlier this season. In comparison, Red Bull have done it five times (although not since Silverstone), Lotus has managed three times and Ferrari twice. McLaren have managed only five double-points finishes this year, though they have at least scored something in every race.
- The curse of starting on the second row seems to be fading. Before Singapore, the best result for a driver starting on the second row was third. Vettel and Button secured a one-two starting from third and fourth on the grid, and Vettel’s win was the first for a driver starting third since Hungary 2011.
- If Sebastian Vettel wins the championship, then he will be the first driver ever to do so without winning a single race in Europe. When he won the championship in 2010, he won just one race in his home continent, but no one has ever failed to win a European race and gone on to claim the title.
- Only three drivers have won Singapore’s night race; Alonso x2 (2008, 2010), Hamilton x1 (2009) and Vettel x2 (2011, 2012). Coincidentally, this also equals the number of times each driver has won the World Driver’s Championship.