Reversal of Fortune: Hamilton’s Mercedes finishes first, Rosberg unable to start; Vettel & Ricciardo 2nd and 3rd for Red Bull
Pix from the always excellent GrandPrix247.com
The title pursuit may have found its turning point on a hot & humid race night in Singapore as Mercedes teammates and archrivals Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg experienced diametrically opposite fates at the hands of the racing gods. While Hamilton started from Pole and was sprinted away from the field to rack up a relatively stress-free victory under the lights, Rosberg’s Silver Arrow suffered a terminal failure due to a broken steering column wiring lume and was unable to start the race even as his team desperately tried to fix the problem on the grid and in the pits. So with the car’s steering wheel unable to handle its many intricate tasks properly Rosberg was forced to retire and possibly hope that Hamilton ran into similar troubles. It didn’t happen and as Hamilton sailed away flawlessly into the night and on towards victory, the Englishman also wrested the overall Drivers’ points lead away from his despondent German teammate. With luck now seeming to have deserted Rosberg and swung to Hamilton in the last several races and Hamilton having pushed through his own rough patches to recapture the edge in the mental battle with superb results the last two races, it could well be Singapore that we point to as the decisive moment in the 2014 Championship. But with five contests left there is still time for Rosberg to dust himself off and take the fight to the now supremely confident Hamilton… provided he has no more mechanical DNFs.
Finishing behind Hamilton were the two Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo who took advantage of Rosberg’s absence and the RB10’s excellent handling on the tight street circuit to storm the podium. It was Vettel’s best finish of the season and only the third time the 4-time World Champion has finished in front of his junior teammate. Ferrari performed decently the week after their big team shake up with Fernando Alonso capturing 4th and Kimi Raikkonen taking 8th to earn valuable Constructors’ points, while Williams had a mixed result with Felipe Massa a strong 5th after nursing his tires effectively but Valtteri Bottas out of the points in 11th. Outgoing Scuderia Torro Rosso driver Jean-Eric Vergne made his case to stay in F1 with a very impressive 6th place finish and the Force Indias of Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg sandwiched Raikkonen in 7th and 9th respectively. Kevin Magnussen grabbed the last point for McLaren with a gutsy drive that saw the young Dane battling severe cockpit overheating problems leaving him unable to utilize the boiling hot drinks bottle and with burns that were treated after the race.
Top 10 finishers & times here:
| Pos | No | Driver | Team | Laps | Time/Retired | Grid | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 60 | 2:00:04.795 | 1 | 25 |
| 2 | 1 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull Racing-Renault | 60 | +13.5 secs | 4 | 18 |
| 3 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull Racing-Renault | 60 | +14.2 secs | 3 | 15 |
| 4 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 60 | +15.3 secs | 5 | 12 |
| 5 | 19 | Felipe Massa | Williams-Mercedes | 60 | +42.1 secs | 6 | 10 |
| 6 | 25 | Jean-Eric Vergne | STR-Renault | 60 | +56.8 secs | 12 | 8 |
| 7 | 11 | Sergio Perez | Force India-Mercedes | 60 | +59.0 secs | 15 | 6 |
| 8 | 7 | Kimi Räikkönen | Ferrari | 60 | +60.6 secs | 7 | 4 |
| 9 | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India-Mercedes | 60 | +61.6 secs | 13 | 2 |
| 10 | 20 | Kevin Magnussen | McLaren-Mercedes | 60 | +62.2 secs | 9 | 1 |
Complete results for the Singapore Grand Prix available at Formula1.com.
With the next race 2 weeks away at the storied Suzuka track in Japan, team Mercedes should have just enough time to banish all gremlins and insure that the Drivers’ Championship is decided on merit and not reliability issues. We’ll find out together the weekend of October 5th at spectacular Suzuka!