Did Mercedes make Hamilton's win harder?

Things couldn't have been going better for Lewis Hamilton halfway through the Singapore Grand Prix.

While his lead over Fernando Alonso was only six and a half seconds, he had controlled the race since the early stages and had the pace he needed to respond to anything his opposition could throw at him.

With championship rival Nico Rosberg long since out of the race, Hamilton had been presented with an open goal he was not going to miss.

But while Hamilton had everything he could influence under control, in the back of his mind was always the fear of a safety car.

The past six Singapore GPs had all had caution periods, and almost inevitably the 'SC' boards waved when he was on his 31st lap, the consequence of a clash between two drivers who Hamilton would only have given a second thought to while lapping them.

Sergio Perez's attempt to pass Adrian Sutil's Sauber for 17th place resulted in the pair tangling, with the Force India sustaining front-wing damage. Moments later the front wing collapsed, covering the track in shards of carbonfibre.

The mid-race safety car was what Hamilton had been dreading © LAT

Hamilton was not far behind the incident and was already concerned about the possibility of a puncture having driven through the debris. His Pirellis survived intact but, as he was only on his fifth lap on his third set of super-softs, the team deemed it too early to bring him in.

Up to that point, things couldn't have gone more smoothly. Hamilton had made a good getaway and pulled 1.6s on Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull on the first lap, ensuring that he was out of DRS range long before it was enabled on lap three.

By the time Vettel peeled into the pits at the end of lap 12, he was 8.892s down after losing a couple of seconds on his in-lap as he struggled with his tyres. Well out of undercut range, Hamilton banged in a quick in-lap, pitted at the end of lap 13 and emerged with a lead of almost 10s over Vettel.

So in control was Hamilton that he was able to sacrifice three seconds of that lead to take it easy on his tyres early in that stint.

But with Vettel and Red Bull more concerned about third-placed Alonso, who made his second stop a lap earlier than Vettel and jumped to second when the Red Bull pitted, Hamilton could stop again on lap 26 safe in the knowledge that, despite conceding a two-lap undercut to the Spaniard, he would emerge with a healthy lead.

When the safety car emerged, Hamilton had just set the fastest lap of the race so far on lap 30. But suddenly, his cushion was gone.

While the decision by Mercedes not to bring him in under the safety car superficially seemed risky, that would only have been the case were Mercedes not to have had a pace advantage on its side.

Mercedes was confident Hamilton could cope with whatever it threw at him © XPB

And even if Hamilton had come in for softs at the end of his 31st lap, with 30 laps still scheduled (the race ultimately hit the two-hour limit and finished one lap short of its planned distance), the team had every reason to believe he would have to stop again anyway.

"At that moment, there were 29 laps to the end," explained Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff. "The longest run we had seen that weekend was 19 laps, so it was a risk we wouldn't want to take."

With Alonso among those who opted to pit under the safety car, the race situation was simple. The seven cars lined up behind Hamilton during the full-course caution were all on the slower, soft (harder) rubber.

Alonso opted to pit to switch to the softs and slipping to fourth, allowing the Red Bulls of Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo to move up to second and third. They had stopped on laps 25 and 27 respectively and were attempting to get to the end of the race without stopping again.

The safety-car period was surprisingly long, a consequence of the time it took to clear the pieces of Force India from the track and to cycle the backmarkers (which included Perez after he pitted for a new nose) onto the lead lap. Things finally got back under way on lap 38.

During that stint, there were some quizzical radio messages from Hamilton, who did not initially know that the cars behind him were all taking it easy in an attempt to reach the end. He knew he needed to gun it on the super-softs to build a lead, but was worried about another safety car.

Hamilton had to charge while preserving his super-softs © LAT

"Later on in the race, I was a bit unaware of what I needed to do," said Hamilton.

"That second-to-last stint, I extended it as long as I could and then they said, 'We need 27 seconds.' And that was still six seconds more I had, and my tyres were dropping off, so I didn't really understand why.

"I was also nervous that, if the safety car came out, would that cause me big problems? Fortunately, we got to where I needed to go and we pitted."

The team was always confident that the gap Hamilton already had was enough to react to any safety car without compromising the chances of victory.

And while Hamilton could not quite do enough to make a stop and emerge still in the lead, he had pulled enough time on everyone else to pit on lap 52 and rejoin behind only Vettel. The strategy was correct.

The situation echoed Michael Schumacher's famous third stint in the 1998 Hungarian Grand Prix, when he was told he had to pull at least 20s on second-placed David Coulthard in 19 laps.

The demands on Hamilton were similar to Schumacher's famous situation in Hungary 16 years ago © LAT

While Hamilton's 15-lap stint wasn't directly analogous - with Vettel nursing his soft rubber to the finish rather than going toe to toe on pace - it was a pressure situation that the 2008 world champion dealt with admirably. It would have been easy to overdrive, work the tyres too hard, make a costly error, but he held firm and rammed home his advantage brilliantly.

Over those 15 laps, he averaged 1.690s per lap faster than Vettel. His advantage had built to 25.338s when he peeled into the pits for his final set of tyres, switching to softs.

"That was really awesome," said Wolff of Hamilton's charge. "These are the days when you recognise how great he is. It makes the difference between the superstars and the stars, the very best and the good."

There was still one piece of business to attend to before it was a done deal - Vettel.

With Hamilton warning over the radio that he feared the risk of a tyre letting go or their performance falling off the proverbial cliff, Mercedes knew it had to concede track position to the Red Bull driver.

With the German actually taking a little time out of Hamilton in the middle sector, it seems the stop was timed to perfection as the Mercedes' pace advantage was all but gone.

But with fresh boots, Hamilton had significantly more grip than Vettel, using his traction advantage out of the Turn 5 right-hander onto the long back straight to get a run on Vettel, surprising him by scything past in the flat-out Turn 6 kink.

Vettel had little to fight Hamilton with © LAT

"There was no point to defend because, at that stage, he was in a different category," said Vettel. "He was on fresh tyres whereas I was at the end of my tyre life.

"I thought I would give him all the space to pass me on the inside of 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, so had to back off and let him through."

While Vettel admitted that it might have been possible to give Hamilton more to think about had he taken super-softs for his third stint, the real battle for him was with Alonso.

Red Bull recognised at the second round of pitstops that Alonso had done enough to undercut him, so decided to do something different and switch to the softs.

Ultimately, this was what earned not just Vettel's second place, but a third place for Ricciardo too. When Alonso stopped for softs under the safety car, both got ahead of him. And while Ricciardo was battling battery problems, he had the pace to stay ahead of the Ferrari.

The fact is that, up ahead, Hamilton and Mercedes were in a class of their own on race day. Unexpectedly so, given that the top three teams were covered by just two and a quarter tenths in qualifying. In reality, the actual battle was the one for the championship between Hamilton and team-mate Rosberg.

Rosberg became a spectator © LAT

Unfortunately, we were denied that scrap by the fate that befell Rosberg, who described this as the toughest day of the season for him and a bigger blow than retiring from the lead of the British Grand Prix with a gearbox glitch.

He was the victim of a problem with the wiring loom housed in the steering column, one that manifested itself when he jumped into the car in the garage to head to the grid.

"It was a connection in the steering column because even changing the steering wheel didn't work," explained Rosberg.

"None of the steering-wheel functions worked, so I had no hybrid power and no DRS.

"The gear paddles sort of worked, which was strange, but they would always shift up two gears at a time, so I had no fourth or sixth gear. It was just all over the place, that's why I was so slow.

"My brake balance was completely in the wrong place and I couldn't brake properly because I couldn't change it.

Mercedes did its utmost to keep Rosberg in the race © LAT

"Even coming into the pitstop [was difficult], I didn't have the pit limiter. They were going to jack me up, I would have to go to full speed then drop the car, but they decided that was too dangerous."

To make matters worse, Rosberg's car was also stuck in reconnaissance-lap mode. After failing to get away from the dummy grid (the clutch paddles didn't work either), he started from the pitlane.

The race lasted only until the first pitstop when, after bringing the car to a halt using the anti-stall, the team decided against risking dropping him from the rear jack with wheels spinning. After all, by then, there was no chance whatsoever of him scoring.

While it was actually an impressive display of ingenuity and tenacity on the part of team and driver to try to keep the car in the race, it was an uneven battle. To his credit, Rosberg spent the rest of the evening following Hamilton's race from the pitwall rather than skulking off into the night.

He was also honest enough to admit that, while pleased to see the team winning, he was torn by watching his team-mate turn a 22-point deficit into a three-point championship lead.

"I'm split in two," said Rosberg half an hour after the race, clearly gutted but not wallowing in his own misfortune.

Rosberg even stayed on for the celebration photo © LAT

"On one side, I'm pleased that even though one car stopped, the team was able to win with the other car.

"It means a lot to me when the team can have something to cheer for. A lot of the team had a really good day, especially one side of the garage.

"On the other hand, I'm disappointed that I wasn't the one to finish because I wanted to have a shot at the win today."

Hamilton, who crossed the line over 13s clear of Vettel, couldn't have hoped for a better scenario.

Victory, with Rosberg out, gave him the championship lead for the first time since May's Spanish Grand Prix. And a second successive win means that the momentum has swung his way with five races to go.

"I came here hoping to gain those seven points," said Hamilton. "Anything more than that was just a bonus. So those extra points are a huge help. But that's several DNFs we've had now on either car..."

The implication is clear. Hamilton knows from painful experience that unreliability has been - and could continue to be - a key player in the championship fight.

But that's a concern for another day. The fact is, in Singapore Hamilton did exactly what he needed to do.