Lewis Hamilton led from start to finish to win the Singapore Grand Prix at the Marina Bay Street Circuit. It was the Briton’s second win of the season and the eleventh of his career.
Toyota’s Timo Glock secured his highest placing this season coming in second with Renault’s Fernando Alonso coming home in third. Championship leader Jenson Button bounced back after a disappointing qualifying session to finish fifth, ahead of his teammate and rival for the title Rubens Barrichello who finished sixth. The result means that Button extends his lead over the Brazilian by one point to 15 points with three rounds of the championship to go. Button can now secure the drivers’ championship in Japan if results go his way. Sebastian Vettel who was chasing Hamilton for the first half of the race eventually finished fourth after incurring a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Click here to view photos of the weekend The same penalty befell Nico Rosberg after he made an illegal manoeuvre exiting the pit lane. It was disappointing end to what was turning out to be a highly promising race for the German and his Williams team. Rosberg was running in second before the incident and eventually finished down in 11th place.
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After the controversies surrounding last year’s race, this year was free of major incident. The safety car was introduced on lap 21 after Force India’s Adrian Sutil drove into BMW’s Nick Heidfeld on turn 14 eventually ending both drivers’ races. After a scandal-filled fortnight, Renault had a mixed weekend. Alonso finished on the podium for the second season running, but his teammate Romain Grosjean — who managed to crash his car on “Piquet Corner” during practice on Friday — retired on lap three with brake problems. The young French driver described it as the “worst weekend ever”.
Apart from Jenson Button slightly extending his lead over Rubens Barrichello, the story of the weekend was the return to form of Timo Glock and Toyota. It equals the German’s best finish in a race (at Hungary in 2008) and recaptures the form he showed in the season’s first four races. The win moves Hamilton up one place to sixth in the drivers’ championship with 37 points. Glock’s eight points moves him up three places from 12th to ninth.
