Race Report - Points Blaster

Lewis Hamilton blasted into the lead of the world championship by dominating the Singapore Grand Prix while his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg, who had led the points, retired with a wiring loom problem. Hamilton now has 241 points to Rosberg's 238.

"I was dreaming it last night but you never really think it's going to happen," Hamilton said of his seventh win this year. "I just want to say a huge thanks to my team. What they've done this year is absolutely incredible and to be able to arrive here knowing that we have a car we can fight with, and just the feeling I had through the race. I couldn't do it without them. Thank you guys."

Hamilton qualified on pole after just edging out Rosberg who lined up second. But when the cars left for the final formation lap, Rosberg's car refused to move. His mechanics pushed the car into pit lane and he started from there, but his race was to end soon.

"The problems with my steering wheel began in the garage even before the race," Rosberg said, "and it was a difficult moment when I couldn't pull away from the grid - the car didn't get out of neutral. When I left the pit-lane, I was only able to change gear - there was no radio, no DRS and reduced Hybrid power.

"We were hoping that the systems might come back to life, like the radio did, and that we could change the situation. But after we changed the wheel another time, we had to retire the car. It was a tough day for me and unfortunately another reliability problem for the team."

Rosberg's absence on the grid left a nice hole for Fernando Alonso, who had qualified fifth in his Ferrari, to shot through. He slide wide in the first turn as he passed Sebastian Vettel but then handed the place back to the Red Bull driver. Daniel Ricciardo started third and slipped to fourth in his Red Bull.

That was it as far at the race win was concerned. Hamilton led all but two of the 60 laps, ceding the lead only to Ricciardo and Vettel during the pit stops.

But then fate created a chance for someone other than Hamilton to win when Sergio Perez (Force India) collided with Adrian Sutil (Sauber) and left bits of carbon fiber front wing all over the track. That brought out the safety car on lap 31 and changed many a driver's strategy.

Hamilton, on the super soft Pirellis, would have to make one more stop. Vettel, Ricciardo and Alonso, running in that order behind him and on Pirelli's soft tires, decided to stretch their tires to the end of the race. The safety car came in at the end of lap 37 and Hamilton blasted away to try to build up a cushion so he could make his stop without losing the lead.

"It was all running pretty comfortably until the safety car came out, which gave me some problems," Hamilton said. "I was driving hard to build the gap but then the tires started dropping off and I wasn't sure what to do - keep pushing or back off to look after them. So we pitted straight away and I came out behind Seb."

Hamilton had a 25.2 second lead when he pitted at the end of lap 52. As he said, he came out just behind Vettel.

"But I knew they were on a two-stop strategy and that his tires were old," Hamilton said. "I went for it down the back straight - the gap was pretty small and maybe I could have chosen another point on the circuit. But I luckily squeezed through and made it stick."

Vettel's view: "As Lewis touched on, the overtaking maneuver, I wasn't quite sure what he was doing. I thought that I give him all the space to pass me on the inside for the next corner but it seemed like he couldn't wait to get back in the lead. It was quite tight but I saw him, obviously, so I had to back-off and let him through. There was no point fighting him at that stage because I didn't have the tires to match him."

So Vettel was second again, leading the three car train with Ricciardo and Alonso. None of them could change the order and that is how they finished.

"I had a good start, got past Daniel and then I think we had a decent race," Vettel said. "We played a little bit with strategy and then the safety car came in the worst possible moment for us. So we tried to obviously stay out with the last set of tires and make them work, which was very, very much borderline. I had a lot of pressure from Daniel and also from Fernando behind, but very happy obviously to make it P2."

Ricciardo enjoyed the support of the visiting Australian fans.

"We were really close to the Mercedes in qualifying and we expected the race pace to be a bit faster today to be honest," he said. "We weren't quick enough in the first stint and we had a few other issues going on, with brakes and some power issues that were coming and going, but in terms of points we still got a good handful to take away from here. It actually feels a bit like a home race here. Singapore to Perth is like Melbourne to Perth, so for West Australians it's not too far."

Alonso, fourth, couldn't snatch his third podium of the season.

"With hindsight, it's easy to ask oneself how things would have gone if I hadn't made a mistake at the start and the safety car hadn't come out when it did," Alonso said, "but overall I'm pleased with this weekend, because we were competitive and were able to fight with the front runners. Sometimes, a safety car can help but I think that today on this front, we were a bit unlucky, because at that moment, we were trying to make sure of second place and our strategy was good.

"We didn't have much of an alternative, because if we had stayed out, the probability was that the stop for the softs would have cost us more places. Even if in the end, I wasn't able to get past, the fact we were competitive right to the finish confirms we have made a step forward. Now, in Suzuka, a real circuit, we will have a clearer picture of where we are."

Felipe Massa started sixth and finished fifth in his Williams.

"We changed the strategy from a three-stop to a two-stop after the long safety car period," Massa said, "and the final stint was pushing the tire to the absolute limit but I managed to make it work. The grip levels were very low in the final few laps but I had a big enough gap to sixth place to ease the car home. Given the nature of the track, fifth was probably the best position we could have hoped for this weekend."

Massa's teammate Valtteri Bottas was sixth but plummeted to 11th in the last two laps.

"After the safety car we moved to a two-stop strategy and in the end the tires just weren't able to hold on," Bottas said. "In the final lap I had a big lock up in the rear tires when I was defending and after that I had no grip and cars could easily sweep past.

"I also had an issue with the power steering in the final stint and this made it harder to keep the tires alive as I lost a lot of feeling in the car. If I hadn't had this issue then I might have been able to go until the end."

Bottas was involved in and then slid back through a battle involving Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso), Perez, Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari), Nico Hulkenberg (Force India) and Kevin Magnussen (McLaren) and they finished in that order with Bottas talking 11th.

"It was a fantastic race," Vergne said, "and I'm extremely happy, especially considering the two 5 second penalties. I had to push as much as possible in the last laps and pull away and this is what I've done. I had a lot of fun overtaking the ones in front of me, an incredible race. I did a mistake yesterday in Qualifying and I said to the team that I would have done everything for them to forgive me today and I think I could manage it in the end."

Perez said: "The race really had everything for me and the final laps were very enjoyable. I was very happy with our performance today and, most importantly, we finished ahead of our direct competitors. Those in front of me at the end had big tire degradation, but this affected me as well.

"When I caught the train ahead I didn't have much grip either and this made each one of the overtakes a bit more difficult. We managed our tires perfectly and to go from P15 to P7 was the reward we deserved."

Hamilton certainly deserved to win this race. Now it is on to the Japanese Grand Prix where he will try to blast open his narrow points lead over Rosberg.