The Singapore Grand Prix weekend is one with a difference, the whole F1 circus sleep in the day and work at night. The only full night race on the calendar always produces an interesting event, with the beauty of the Formula One cars highlighted under shining lights. Marina Bay goes into its 4th year of staging the glamorous event, with some dramatic races behind them, who says this year wont be any different.
Weather had looked to be a problem, with thundery downpours scheduled for much of the weekend, but after Friday and Saturday no rain touch the track and the unpredictability of night weather was scheduled to be a problem, but there was no rain in sight.
I have the summaries of all the Free Practice Sessions and Qualifying here, as well as the full race review, click 'read more' to look through the full review, also click here for all the news on the run up to this weekend. ..
Free Practice 1,2&3..
First practice in Singapore had a rather timely delay, after being shortened for 30 minutes as track repairs took place on the kerbs. It began after the delay, under darkening sky's with Lewis Hamilton coming out of the session on top with a 1m48.599, followed by Vettel, 4 tenths behind, with team mate Webber, with Alonso and Button rounding out the top 5. A brief red flag towards the end of the session ruined some teams running as Heikki Kovalainen's Lotus had to be removed from the track after the brakes set fire, but he had stopped due to a gearbox problem. Other than that the session was uneventful with the odd lock up and trip to the escape road imminent as drivers learned the tricky 23 corner track. The last disturbance came after Felipe Massa ran over a kerb at the turn 7 exit, prompting a red flag with just 7 minutes remaining.
Second practice began with pitch black darkness above, with Sebastian Vettel moving back to the top, with an imminent 2nd world championship in sights. He posted a top time of 1m.46.374 just 2 tenths ahead of Ferrari's Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard was followed closely by Hamilton and Massa, with Webber 5th and Button 10th after missing a considerable amount of running after a minor off at turn 14 caused him to get out of the car, after the reverse gear did not work on his Mclaren. An eventful session saw more lock ups, escape road trips and even a collision with the wall which Sebastian Buemi hit at turn 21, breaking his suspension. The Singapore Sling, the 3 part chicane, saw Kamui Kobayashi launch hit Sauber over the kerbs, a move which he replicated the following day.
Free practice 3 saw a Red Bull at the top, but this time it was Mark Webber as he took over the reigns from Vettel in Saturdays only free practice session. He was just 0.027 seconds ahead of Mclarens Jenson Button, making up for the ground lost in FP2. Webber's time of 1m.46.081 made it the fastest time off the whole weekend so far, with his team mate 3 tenths behind in 3rd. Vettel finished just ahead of Fernando Alonso with Lewis Hamilton the last of the top 5. The last free practice saw no major incidents as drivers had already climatised and got to know the track.
Qualifying
Q1 saw the usual drivers out at the first hurdle, in the order of Kovalianen in 19th, followed by team mate Trulli, Glock and D'Ambrosio ahead of the two HRT's of Ricciardo and Liuzzi, with his 5 (0) place penalty. The shock however came from Vitaly Petrov, who saw himself out after the first session. The Renault Lotus team had already decided it would be a struggle this weekend, but no one predicted that.
Q2 was slightly more eventful, with Kobayashi replicating an earlier move to launch over the kerbs at turn 10 but this time, his car hit the barrier. This meant 17th place had already been occupied, but the other 6 cars out were Perez, who was just knocked out by Paul Di Resta at the chequered flag, in 11th, ahead of Barrichello, Maldonado, Buemi, Senna and Alguesuari.
Q3 was an uneventful session, with only 7 cars posting a time as Schumacher, Sutil and Di Resta stayed in the pits to save tyres. After the first runs Vettel was 1st ahead of Hamilton, who had finished Q2 with a puncture, Button and Alonso with Massa aborting his run. The start of the session however saw the drivers behind Button squabbling for clean air, with Hamilton overtaking Massa on the out lap to get him further ahead for the drivers session plan. By the end Vettel finished the session to claim his 11th pole of the season, ahead of Webber, Button and Hamilton. The later had sat in the pits for the end of the session, saving a set of tyres which he had lost due to his puncture. Alonso was 5th claiming it to be one of his best laps of qualifying, ahead of Massa, Rosberg, Schumacher, Sutil and Paul Di Resta all in team formation.
Race
The race had been highly anticipated, could anyone stop Vettel? And will he be crowned the 2011 F1 world champion? Well there were certainly some drivers attempting to stop him.
The humidity was rising as the drivers lined up on the grid, ready for the long 61 lap race. The getaways at the front were contrasting, Vettel got away decently with Button behind going with him. However alongside the Red Bull, his team mate had too much wheel spin, and when Hamilton attempted to go down the inside they both had to lift, watching Alonso, Rosberg and Massa fly past. Hamilton's struggles did not finish there, after going offline to pass Webber his tyres picked up the marbles which were lying on the inside of the track, and going onto the straight after turn 4 Schumacher capitalised on that and got past.
Hamilton soon got past the Silver Arrows of Schumacher, coincidentally at the time Martin Brundle said he could be behind him for "A very long time". Soon after Hamilton got past Rosberg and went on a hunt for Massa. Meanwhile at the front Vettel steadily increased his advantage over Button to 2.5 seconds by the first lap, and by lap 10 it was up to 11 seconds. Webber got past Alonso on lap 11 even though he was struggling with DRS and KERS problems, but Alonso's rear tyres were badly worn already, and he followed Nico Rosberg into the pits a lap after the German to replace his tyres.
Hamilton and Massa pit on lap 11 to cover Webber and Alonso, they drove into the pits just inches apart, and left the pit lane in the same manor. They rejoined with Hamilton going straight into an attack with the DRS, he went to the outside but tried to cut back, losing part of his rear wing and puncturing Massa's tyre. Massa said after the race he could of caused " A big incident" and that yet again, he "wasn't using his mind". This incident promoted the two Mercedes and two Force India's, running line astern, up 2 positions as Lewis pitted for a new front wing, and Massa trundled round the lap with a rapidly disappearing rear wheel.
Both Vettel and Button had large leads by this stage, and pitted on the same lap; emerging in the same positions. Paul Di Resta, who had taken a different strategy to his team mate, was running a long first stint on the harder rubbered tyre, and was up to 3rd.
Hamilton duly got a drive through penalty, and served it on lap 16 falling back to 20th place. Alot further forward, Paul Di Resta let Alonso past for 3rd as they are both in different paced, and different tyred cars. He is soon holding up Webber, but chooses to pit for the softer tyre. Hamilton, moving through the field, radio's his team asking what result he is racing towards; the reply is for points, and the field are coming towards him.
Lewis gets past Massa, this time with no contact, after Felipe made a mistake going into turn 4, leading to the Mclaren driver passing the Ferrari before his DRS is even enabled. Ahead of the rapidly closing Hamilton, Di Resta gets past Sutil for 5th after Alonso pits for new rubber in the bid to keep Webber behind. Hamilton is up into the points by lap 29 and is hunting down Schumacher, but he soon catches up as the Mercedes buried itself in the barrier after contact with Sergio Perez, sending the Mercedes into the air and into the barriers at turn 7. This sends out the Safety Car for 4 laps, as the majority of the field pit for tyres. They rejoined with Vettel behind the Safety Car, but there are quite a few back markers between him and Jenson Button.
The Safety Car came in as Vettel bolts, with Button being held up significantly by Kobayashi; who later got a penalty. Webber gets past Alonso at turn 10 while Hamilton gets past Sutil and Rosberg within 2 laps; after he benefited from the Safety Car. He then passes Paul Di Resta and sets his sights on Alonso, 13 seconds ahead.
Vettel is lonely at the front, 12.5 seconds ahead of Button, and the hopes of a non Vettel victory start to fade. Numerous incidents were under investigation, including contact between Rosberg and Perez which prompted Perez to back up Schumacher, causing the incident which brought out the Safety Car. The racing is quiet for a few laps, as it settles down. The gaps between the cars are ever extending as people begin getting lapped, or are on different strategy's. Alonso drops off the back of Webber, as the Australian then pits for fresh rubber. He emerges behind Hamilton but immediately passes the Mclaren with better traction and grip. Hamilton soon pits after Button, and Vettel follows them in a few laps later, only to have a scare after a Lotus is released right in front of him, as they ran side by side down the pit lane.
Hamilton was back behind Rosberg and Di Resta, but respectively gets past them on lap 52 and 53. Button sets the fastest lap of the race on lap 54, attempting to challenge Vettel. The gap goes from 9 seconds on lap 54 to 3.7 seconds on lap 59. The two leaders lose time equally going through back markers, but its too late as Vettel crosses the line just 1.7 ahead of Button. Webber was a 25 seconds back, ahead of Alonso and Hamilton. Paul Di Resta came a career best 6th showing a brave strategy can work, he crossed the line as the last car on the lead lap.
Rosberg took 7th ahead of the second Force India of Adrian Sutil with Felipe Massa recovering to 9th, overtaking Perez on the last few laps. Maldonado finished just outside the top 10, with Buemi, Barrichello and Kobayashi finishing behind. Bruno Senna had a quiet race, finishing 15th with barely a mention during commentary. Heikki Kovalainen was the only Lotus to finish, in 16th, after Trulli retired. Even more impressive was the fact Vitaly Petrov finished behind the Team Lotus car, after struggling all weekend. D'Ambrosio, Ricciardo and Liuzzi rounded out the finishers, with Alguesuari not finishing after crashing with 5 laps left. Trulli and Schumacher also retired with Glock the first too, after a similar accident to Alguesuari.
Heated words were shared between Massa and Hamilton after the race, Massa saying Lewis does not "use his mind" and it could of been "a big incident". He also went up to Hamilton in the 'pen', saying "good job" while continuously hitting him abit too hard to be congratulating him.
Sebastian Vettel now leads the World Championship by 124 points, with 125 points the maximum remaining. Jenson Button moved up to 2nd in the table, ahead of Alonso, Webber and Hamilton.
Pos Driver Team Time
1. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1h59:06.537
2. Button McLaren-Mercedes + 1.737
3. Webber Red Bull-Renault + 29.279
4. Alonso Ferrari + 55.449
5. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes + 1:07.766
6. Di Resta Force India-Mercedes + 1:51.067
7. Rosberg Mercedes + 1 lap
8. Sutil Force India-Mercedes + 1 lap
9. Massa Ferrari + 1 lap
10. Perez Sauber-Ferrari + 1 lap
11. Maldonado Williams-Cosworth + 1 lap
12. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1 lap
13. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth + 1 lap
14. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari + 2 laps
15. Senna Renault + 2 laps
16. Kovalainen Lotus-Renault + 2 laps
17. Petrov Renault + 2 laps
18. D'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth + 2 laps
19. Ricciardo HRT-Cosworth + 4 laps
20. Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth + 4 laps
21. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 5 laps
Fastest lap: Button, 1:48.454
Not classified/retirements:
Driver Team On lap
Trulli Lotus-Renault 48
Schumacher Mercedes 29
Glock Virgin-Cosworth 10
Images courtesy of Wikimedia.
Weather had looked to be a problem, with thundery downpours scheduled for much of the weekend, but after Friday and Saturday no rain touch the track and the unpredictability of night weather was scheduled to be a problem, but there was no rain in sight.
I have the summaries of all the Free Practice Sessions and Qualifying here, as well as the full race review, click 'read more' to look through the full review, also click here for all the news on the run up to this weekend. ..
Free Practice 1,2&3..
First practice in Singapore had a rather timely delay, after being shortened for 30 minutes as track repairs took place on the kerbs. It began after the delay, under darkening sky's with Lewis Hamilton coming out of the session on top with a 1m48.599, followed by Vettel, 4 tenths behind, with team mate Webber, with Alonso and Button rounding out the top 5. A brief red flag towards the end of the session ruined some teams running as Heikki Kovalainen's Lotus had to be removed from the track after the brakes set fire, but he had stopped due to a gearbox problem. Other than that the session was uneventful with the odd lock up and trip to the escape road imminent as drivers learned the tricky 23 corner track. The last disturbance came after Felipe Massa ran over a kerb at the turn 7 exit, prompting a red flag with just 7 minutes remaining.
Free practice 3 saw a Red Bull at the top, but this time it was Mark Webber as he took over the reigns from Vettel in Saturdays only free practice session. He was just 0.027 seconds ahead of Mclarens Jenson Button, making up for the ground lost in FP2. Webber's time of 1m.46.081 made it the fastest time off the whole weekend so far, with his team mate 3 tenths behind in 3rd. Vettel finished just ahead of Fernando Alonso with Lewis Hamilton the last of the top 5. The last free practice saw no major incidents as drivers had already climatised and got to know the track.
Qualifying
Q1 saw the usual drivers out at the first hurdle, in the order of Kovalianen in 19th, followed by team mate Trulli, Glock and D'Ambrosio ahead of the two HRT's of Ricciardo and Liuzzi, with his 5 (0) place penalty. The shock however came from Vitaly Petrov, who saw himself out after the first session. The Renault Lotus team had already decided it would be a struggle this weekend, but no one predicted that.
Q2 was slightly more eventful, with Kobayashi replicating an earlier move to launch over the kerbs at turn 10 but this time, his car hit the barrier. This meant 17th place had already been occupied, but the other 6 cars out were Perez, who was just knocked out by Paul Di Resta at the chequered flag, in 11th, ahead of Barrichello, Maldonado, Buemi, Senna and Alguesuari. Race
The race had been highly anticipated, could anyone stop Vettel? And will he be crowned the 2011 F1 world champion? Well there were certainly some drivers attempting to stop him.
The humidity was rising as the drivers lined up on the grid, ready for the long 61 lap race. The getaways at the front were contrasting, Vettel got away decently with Button behind going with him. However alongside the Red Bull, his team mate had too much wheel spin, and when Hamilton attempted to go down the inside they both had to lift, watching Alonso, Rosberg and Massa fly past. Hamilton's struggles did not finish there, after going offline to pass Webber his tyres picked up the marbles which were lying on the inside of the track, and going onto the straight after turn 4 Schumacher capitalised on that and got past.
Hamilton soon got past the Silver Arrows of Schumacher, coincidentally at the time Martin Brundle said he could be behind him for "A very long time". Soon after Hamilton got past Rosberg and went on a hunt for Massa. Meanwhile at the front Vettel steadily increased his advantage over Button to 2.5 seconds by the first lap, and by lap 10 it was up to 11 seconds. Webber got past Alonso on lap 11 even though he was struggling with DRS and KERS problems, but Alonso's rear tyres were badly worn already, and he followed Nico Rosberg into the pits a lap after the German to replace his tyres.
Hamilton and Massa pit on lap 11 to cover Webber and Alonso, they drove into the pits just inches apart, and left the pit lane in the same manor. They rejoined with Hamilton going straight into an attack with the DRS, he went to the outside but tried to cut back, losing part of his rear wing and puncturing Massa's tyre. Massa said after the race he could of caused " A big incident" and that yet again, he "wasn't using his mind". This incident promoted the two Mercedes and two Force India's, running line astern, up 2 positions as Lewis pitted for a new front wing, and Massa trundled round the lap with a rapidly disappearing rear wheel.
Both Vettel and Button had large leads by this stage, and pitted on the same lap; emerging in the same positions. Paul Di Resta, who had taken a different strategy to his team mate, was running a long first stint on the harder rubbered tyre, and was up to 3rd.
Hamilton duly got a drive through penalty, and served it on lap 16 falling back to 20th place. Alot further forward, Paul Di Resta let Alonso past for 3rd as they are both in different paced, and different tyred cars. He is soon holding up Webber, but chooses to pit for the softer tyre. Hamilton, moving through the field, radio's his team asking what result he is racing towards; the reply is for points, and the field are coming towards him.
The Safety Car came in as Vettel bolts, with Button being held up significantly by Kobayashi; who later got a penalty. Webber gets past Alonso at turn 10 while Hamilton gets past Sutil and Rosberg within 2 laps; after he benefited from the Safety Car. He then passes Paul Di Resta and sets his sights on Alonso, 13 seconds ahead.
Vettel is lonely at the front, 12.5 seconds ahead of Button, and the hopes of a non Vettel victory start to fade. Numerous incidents were under investigation, including contact between Rosberg and Perez which prompted Perez to back up Schumacher, causing the incident which brought out the Safety Car. The racing is quiet for a few laps, as it settles down. The gaps between the cars are ever extending as people begin getting lapped, or are on different strategy's. Alonso drops off the back of Webber, as the Australian then pits for fresh rubber. He emerges behind Hamilton but immediately passes the Mclaren with better traction and grip. Hamilton soon pits after Button, and Vettel follows them in a few laps later, only to have a scare after a Lotus is released right in front of him, as they ran side by side down the pit lane.
Hamilton was back behind Rosberg and Di Resta, but respectively gets past them on lap 52 and 53. Button sets the fastest lap of the race on lap 54, attempting to challenge Vettel. The gap goes from 9 seconds on lap 54 to 3.7 seconds on lap 59. The two leaders lose time equally going through back markers, but its too late as Vettel crosses the line just 1.7 ahead of Button. Webber was a 25 seconds back, ahead of Alonso and Hamilton. Paul Di Resta came a career best 6th showing a brave strategy can work, he crossed the line as the last car on the lead lap.
Heated words were shared between Massa and Hamilton after the race, Massa saying Lewis does not "use his mind" and it could of been "a big incident". He also went up to Hamilton in the 'pen', saying "good job" while continuously hitting him abit too hard to be congratulating him.
Sebastian Vettel now leads the World Championship by 124 points, with 125 points the maximum remaining. Jenson Button moved up to 2nd in the table, ahead of Alonso, Webber and Hamilton.
Pos Driver Team Time
1. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1h59:06.537
2. Button McLaren-Mercedes + 1.737
3. Webber Red Bull-Renault + 29.279
4. Alonso Ferrari + 55.449
5. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes + 1:07.766
6. Di Resta Force India-Mercedes + 1:51.067
7. Rosberg Mercedes + 1 lap
8. Sutil Force India-Mercedes + 1 lap
9. Massa Ferrari + 1 lap
10. Perez Sauber-Ferrari + 1 lap
11. Maldonado Williams-Cosworth + 1 lap
12. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1 lap
13. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth + 1 lap
14. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari + 2 laps
15. Senna Renault + 2 laps
16. Kovalainen Lotus-Renault + 2 laps
17. Petrov Renault + 2 laps
18. D'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth + 2 laps
19. Ricciardo HRT-Cosworth + 4 laps
20. Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth + 4 laps
21. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 5 laps
Fastest lap: Button, 1:48.454
Not classified/retirements:
Driver Team On lap
Trulli Lotus-Renault 48
Schumacher Mercedes 29
Glock Virgin-Cosworth 10
Images courtesy of Wikimedia.
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