The complete Singapore Grand Prix review

PRACTICE

Practice one

Formula 1 usually seems immune to the quirks and issues that can bedevil temporary street circuits in other series, but on Friday in Singapore some of those practicalities intruded, as opening practice was truncated by issues with the kerbing.

The kerbs at Turns 3 and 14 worked loose during support race sessions, leading to a half-hour delay while the kerbs were removed totally before the F1 action could begin, leaving drivers to use their common sense when it came to avoiding walls.

A similar problem developed at Turn 7 in the closing minutes, though this time it was dealt with via a five-minute red flag while track workers very efficiently removed the offending kerb sections.

With the rules stipulating at least two hours between practice sessions, rather than taking the rest of the schedule even later into the evening, practice one was brought down to just one hour - with red flags for both the Turn 7 kerb and Heikki Kovalainen's Lotus parking with its brakes on fire curtailing the action even more.

When running did take place, up front it became a battle between McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull's nearly-double-champion Sebastian Vettel, won by the Briton.

Mark Webber was 1.4 seconds off the pace in the second Red Bull in third, with the Ferraris fourth and sixth, sandwiching Jenson Button's McLaren.

Webber's session featured a collision with Timo Glock that saw the Red Bull lose a piece of front wing and the Virgin sustain a puncture. Also in trouble was Renault, as overheating issues on Vitaly Petrov's car led to a decision to abandon an upgraded bodywork package for now.

The only non-race driver in action this time was Narain Karthikeyan, making a return to the HRT cockpit in Tonio Liuzzi's car in preparation for the Indian Grand Prix race outing. Karthikeyan was ahead of team-mate Daniel Ricciardo until the Australian edged ahead with his last lap.

Practice two

Second practice ran smoothly and without interruptions, and was largely dominated by Vettel.

The world champion was quickest in the early running, and then pipped Fernando Alonso during the short runs on super soft tyres. The gap between them was only 0.2s, but Vettel's time came on his second lap of a run as he had to back off after encountering Glock on his initial surge.

Hamilton, Massa and Webber completed the top five, ahead of Michael Schumacher, who clouted the Turn 3 barriers without damage.

Force India showed strongly with Adrian Sutil in seventh, although issues with brakes and hydraulics meant his team-mate Paul di Resta had barely any running.

Another British driver not getting much mileage in the evening was Button, who outbraked himself at Turn 14 then could not get reverse gear working to rejoin and had to sit out the second half of the session.

Both Toro Rossos were sidelined early too. Sebastien Buemi crashed at the penultimate corner, and damage from some heavy kerb impacts left Jaime Alguersuari parked in the pits.

Kamui Kobayashi had the most spectacular meeting with the kerbs, launching his Sauber through the air at the Turn 10 chicane, but surviving to take ninth in the end.

Practice three

A pretty much incident-free final practice saw a Red Bull emerge on top once more ahead of qualifying, but this time it was Webber who led the way, which was probably not good news for Vettel's rivals either, mainly because the German had been quicker all weekend.

This time, however, the world champion had to settle for third position, as he found traffic in his run with the super soft tyres. Vettel didn't have many reasons to worry, though, as before that, he had been the fastest by some margin with the harder tyre compound.

The Red Bulls were split by Button in the McLaren, the Briton having a better session than on Friday, finishing just 0.027s behind Webber.

For Button's team-mate Hamilton it wasn't such a great session, the British driver damaging the bottom of his car near the end when he ran wide at Turn 7. Hamilton finished a distant fifth, nearly a second behind Webber. Fourth quickest was Fernando Alonso, the Ferrari driver not far from the top but only after having tried very hard during his flying lap.

QUALIFYING

1st Sebastian Vettel

"It was possible to go faster but, all in all it was a perfect session and I'm very happy. Especially around here as it is a big challenge. It's such a long lap to get everything together on, but we learned from the mistakes we made last year in qualifying."

2nd Mark Webber

"Seb laid it down pretty hard and fast for all of us. He is very quick around here and did a great lap for pole. It's pretty rare that he makes a mistake and I think maybe he saw my data and there were a few corners where I was a little bit quicker and maybe in the chicane he got it all together."

3rd Jenson Button

"The lap was good - both of my laps were. If I had put both of them together, it would have been good, but you struggle to get all three sectors together because either the tyres aren't warm enough at the start of the lap or they are overheating. I'm pleased to be in the top three."

4th Lewis Hamilton

"My first Q3 run was very good. I reckon there was still a bit more time to come because I lost some time behind Fernando Alonso in the final sector of the lap. If I had managed to get another run in Q3, I'd have probably been able to make up some time there."

5th Fernando Alonso

"That might have been my best Q3 lap of the whole year. I gave it 120 per cent, taking risks in some corners, but that was the only way I could hope to fight for the top places. If I'd driven a normal lap, I would have finished in the same position, but half a second off the two McLarens."

6th Felipe Massa

"Sixth is definitely not the result we were aiming for, but we have to accept it. Now we must think about the race. Tyre degradation is significant and both on the soft and the super soft we will have to adapt as best we can."

7th Nico Rosberg

"Qualifying was okay. Generally, it worked out well. Seventh place was the best I could have done today because the top three teams are too fast. It was a good lap, but I really didn't feel that good in the car today. It wasn't how I liked it."

8th Michael Schumacher

"It was quite a tactical qualifying session, in which we chose not to run in Q3 to save new tyres for the race. In theory, this should be worth some time over the race distance, so it was a calculated risk worth taking."

9th Adrian Sutil

"Saving tyres is very important and there was no need for us to run [in Q3]. It was our decision and I'm happy with our decision. I think it was clear. I think Michael put a lap on his super softs so that's also good for us."

10th Paul di Resta

"I wasn't quite as comfortable on the option tyre. I seemed to have advantage over Adrian on the prime tyre and was close on the option, but made a small mistake on my best lap. I can be fairly happy to be in Q3 considering I only did seven time laps yesterday."

11th Sergio Perez

"Overall I am pleased with our qualifying performance today, although it is a shame not to have made it into Q3, as it was very close. My lap in Q2 wasn't really perfect, the one in Q1 was actually better, as I felt more traction then."

12th Rubens Barrichello

"With Kamui Kobayashi shunting we moved up one position but I'm happy to be ahead of some of the people that we are. It's the best that we could have achieved. My lap was really well done on a tough circuit."

13th Pastor Maldonado

"We were a bit more competitive than on Friday and found a better balance. In qualifying, I struggled with tyre temperatures. In Q1, it was very difficult to find the grip in the car and we lost a lot of performance and almost missed Q2. But in Q2 I was able to manage that problem by adjusting the pressure."

14th Sebastien Buemi

"I am happy with my performance as I feel I managed good laps in both Q1 and Q2. It's true we always lack a bit of pace in qualifying, but we have seen recently that does not rule out our chances of having a good race."

15th Bruno Senna

"In qualifying I was much more confident in the car than in P3 because we made a few changes to the car. I didn't think that this weekend would be this tough. It's purely the consequence of having the exhaust blowing in the middle of the car because there are 20-odd corner exits from very low speed."

16th Jaime Alguersuari

"I did what I could and tried my best, but while yesterday I was happy with the car, that was not the case today and I struggled a lot with the set-up, the main problem being a lack of grip. Therefore I feel what I achieved was the maximum I could do, with the car as it was."

17th Kamui Kobayashi

"I pushed too hard [at the chicane] and ended up in the wall. The car was good, so I had the potential to fight for Q3. The kerbs there are too much, everybody thinks the same, but this is racing."

18th Vitaly Petrov

"I didn't brake late or try to take more speed into the corner or anything like this, I just lost the rear at Turn 13, and there are a lot of bumps there. I was maybe a little bit harder than normal then tried to keep speed a little bit late, and suddenly I just lost the rear."

19th Heikki Kovalainen

"I'm sure there was more time to come in the second run, but I got caught in traffic on the outlap and couldn't set the tyres and the brakes right. So that run was not optimum, but it's always difficult here to nail a whole lap. The first was good, though, with no mistakes."

20th Jarno Trulli

"I've struggled with the car all day and even though I managed to get much closer to Heikki in qualifying I'm still not all that happy with where we are. Now it's about getting to the end of the race tomorrow in one piece."

21st Timo Glock

"I haven't been completely happy with the rear of the car and we didn't manage to get it right yet, so qualifying was not perfect. I made a small mistake at the hairpin at Turn 13 but beyond that I think we had the most from the car."

22nd Jerome D'Ambrosio

"I'm a bit disappointed with today's qualifying really. The car is quite good but we just had an issue with the brake balance - it was much more rearwards somehow on my first run, so we had to change this for the second one. It still wasn't perfect and that made me lose a bit of confidence."

23rd Daniel Ricciardo

"I don't want to sound too greedy, but I'm more disappointed that we weren't in front of the Virgins than happy to be the lead HRT. But I didn't expect us to be that close to the Virgins because in practice we were a fair chunk off. Overall, it wasn't too bad.

24th Vitantonio Liuzzi

"We worked on the basis that we would be starting on the last row because of the penalty, so we focused on the balance to make the tyres last. We had a really good first run, but on the second set we had a good first and second sector and then lost all of the rear grip in the third."

THE GRID

Pos  Driver                Team
 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault
 2.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault
 3.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes
 4.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes
 5.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari
 6.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari
 7.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes
 8.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes
 9.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes
10.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes
11.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari
12.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth
13.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth
14.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari
15.  Bruno Senna           Renault
16.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari
17.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari
18.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault
20.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault
21.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth
22.  Jerome D'Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth
23.  Daniel Ricciardo      HRT-Cosworth
24.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth

RACE

It is now as foregone a conclusion as you could imagine. One point will do. One point from the final five races of the 2011 Formula 1 season, and Sebastian Vettel will be a double champion. And even if the man who hasn't finished below fourth all season fails to achieve a single 10th place in Japan, Korea, India, Abu Dhabi or Brazil, if Jenson Button doesn't win every single one of those races, Vettel is still champion.

And just to underline how easy getting that one point will be, Vettel took his big stride closer to the crown with one of his most dominant victories of the year in Singapore.

His advantage was gargantuan from the outset. Button, who had got up to second with a good start, was already 2.5 seconds down at the end of lap one, 7.1s behind after lap five and 11.7s adrift by lap 10. The race was already over.

"We were in a luxury position today," Vettel admitted. "The speed was phenomenal. The car I had, every time I had to push and I wanted to push there was so much more lap time in it. I think we were going at stages more than a second quicker than the cars behind which makes it a lot of fun."

On paper, a safety car period from laps 30 to 33 should have given the chasing pack a shot at attacking Vettel, perhaps pulling off a restart miracle. But backmarkers separated Vettel and Button at the restart, meaning they were already four seconds apart as they crossed the line. Just one lap of racing later, the gap was nine seconds...

In the closing stages, Button started charging up behind Vettel, catching him at a ferocious rate reminiscent of the closing stages of the Canadian Grand Prix. With a fresh set of super softs and having conserved fuel earlier in the race, the Briton decided he had nothing to lose, especially once he got clear of some irksome traffic.

"The last stint I was able to drive as fast as I could," said Button. "It was putting 10-12 qualifying laps together. I could not have gone any quicker. That was it: that was all I could get out of the car. Took a lot of risks, enjoyed it. I said coming here that I wanted to win the race so we had to have a go."

But while Button was squeezing everything he could from the McLaren, getting the gap down to a mere 1.7s, Vettel pretty much had his feet up and the radio on in the cockpit of the Red Bull.

"At the end with quite a lot of traffic, if you take some time and wait until there really opens a gap to avoid any misunderstanding you might sacrifice a couple of second easily," said Vettel.

"Coming around the last corner on the last lap, I probably lifted off a bit too early so 1.7 seconds was obviously still enough, but I think we had it fairly under control and turned the engine down. I felt reasonably comfortable."

Despite the massive points lead, too many other things had to happen to too many other people for Vettel to realistically wrap the title up in Singapore without a hefty following wind behind him, so he said he just focused on enjoying dominating.

"I did make it quite clear before the race that it's not important to know where the other people were. Obviously I was given the gaps to Jenson who was in second and then the race order at the end, crossing the line, I didn't know whether it might be enough or not. A little bit similar to Abu Dhabi [last year]," he said. "I didn't know in which position people had to finish. For the next one, I'm obviously smart enough to work it out myself..."

For Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso, Singapore was where their title hopes ended. While the slightly slow-starting Webber fended off Hamilton into the first corner, Alonso had swept around the outside of them both. Ferrari's pace was not stunning in Singapore, and as Alonso's tyres wore, Webber squeezed past him just before the first pitstops.

But taking on fresh tyres two laps earlier worked well for Alonso, who under-cut his way back in front of the Red Bull despite traffic on his out-lap. It took the safety car restart to give Webber a chance to shake off the Ferrari for good, as he dived past under braking for the Turn 10 chicane as they picked their way through backmarkers, and had third place firmly in the bag thereafter.

Having being thoroughly wrong-footed in his failed bid to pass Webber at the start, Hamilton found himself as low as eighth. He quickly got clear of the two Mercedes and caught fifth-placed Felipe Massa. They pitted in unison on lap 11, and the Ferrari stayed ahead - but Hamilton immediately attacked on their out-lap. He was kept to the outside at the end of the DRS zone, tried to stay alongside, only to clip Massa's car and break his front wing, giving the Ferrari a puncture in the process.

Hamilton would also receive a drivethrough penalty for the incident, dropping him to 15th. Brisk progress, the magic of DRS and a favour from the safety car helped him get back up to fifth, while Massa recovered from 20th to ninth. That was far from enough to mollify the Brazilian, though. As Hamilton started the first of his post-race TV interviews, the enraged Massa made his feelings clear with some furiously sarcastic 'congratulations', leaving the shaken Hamilton to abandon his media round while Massa gave full vent to his feelings at every opportunity.

"I told you yesterday that he cannot use his mind - even in qualifying, so you can imagine in the race..." said Massa. "He could have caused a big accident."

Hamilton's comeback drive involved passing the Force Indias, Nico Rosberg's Mercedes and Sergio Perez's Sauber twice, as he made a third tyre stop while they went through on two. Paul di Resta played this strategy best to come through to sixth, his best F1 result to date, having run as high as third. Rosberg and Adrian Sutil were next up, with Perez pushed back to 10th in the end by Massa's charge.

Perez was fortunate to get that far, as he had been at the centre of the accident that triggered the safety car on lap 29. Having already made their second pitstops, the Mercedes were battling with Perez. Rosberg made it through with a wheel-banging move into the first corner, costing the Sauber momentum and letting Schumacher have a go too. But the former champion was caught out by Perez's braking point and found himself launched skywards before ploughing into the barriers. Schumacher was unhurt, while Perez continued unscathed after pitting for a fresh set of tyres. He scored a point, while his team-mate Kamui Kobayashi was penalised for ignoring blue flags and was only 14th.

Williams had a shot at a point had its strategies worked better and Massa not flown through the field so quickly late on. In the end, trying to run from the safety car period to the finish on one set of softs proved too ambitious for Rubens Barrichello and he slithered back from 10th to 13th in the final few laps. Pastor Maldonado held off Sebastien Buemi's Toro Rosso for 11th.

Jaime Alguersuari crashed the other Toro Rosso late on while recovering from a drivethrough for running into Jarno Trulli and giving the Lotus a puncture. The Italian had earlier got among the Renaults and STRs with a great start, but his evening would end with a gearbox failure. His team-mate Heikki Kovalainen delighted the team by finishing between the Renaults in 16th, after what Eric Boullier called an "embarrassing" showing from his squad. Bruno Senna slid into the wall and broke a front wing but still finished 15th, while Vitaly Petrov was only 17th.

Both HRT broke wings too - Daniel Ricciardo on Timo Glock's Virgin on lap one, Tonio Liuzzi on the barriers. They finished 19th and 20th, behind Jerome D'Ambrosio, whose team-mate Glock crashed.

Lap-by-lap as it happened on AUTOSPORT Live

RACE RESULTS

The Singapore Grand Prix
Singapore, Singapore;
61 laps; 309.087km;
Weather: Dry.

Classified:

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

World Championship standings, round 14:                

Drivers:                    Constructors:             
 1.  Vettel       309        1.  Red Bull-Renault          491
 2.  Button       185        2.  McLaren-Mercedes          353
 3.  Alonso       184        3.  Ferrari                   268
 4.  Webber       182        4.  Mercedes                  114
 5.  Hamilton     168        5.  Renault                    70
 6.  Massa         84        6.  Force India-Mercedes       48
 7.  Rosberg       62        7.  Sauber-Ferrari             36
 8.  Schumacher    52        8.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari         29
 9.  Heidfeld      34        9.  Williams-Cosworth           5
10.  Petrov        34       
11.  Sutil         28       
12.  Kobayashi     27       
13.  Di Resta      20       
14.  Alguersuari   16       
15.  Buemi         13       
16.  Perez          9       
17.  Barrichello    4       
18.  Senna          2       
19.  Maldonado      1       
       

TEAM-BY-TEAM

Red Bull

Vettel and Webber lead practice two and three respectively, but in qualifying it's the German who is utterly untouchable as he streaks to his 11th pole of the year. Webber is second despite being less comfortable all weekend.

The race delivers another crushing Vettel triumph, which moves him to within a point of securing another title. Webber falls to fourth at the start before reclaiming third via a long and tough dice with Alonso.

McLaren

First practice sees Hamilton quickest and Button on the sidelines after he goes off course and cannot engage reverse to rejoin. But their fortunes switch after that, as Button qualifies third, gets to second at the start and stays there, even catching Vettel near the end.

Hamilton has a puncture, a fuelling issue and a spat with Massa on the way to fourth on the grid. He then falls to eighth on the first lap after failing to pass Webber for fourth, collides with Massa and gets wing damage and a penalty, then fights back from 15th to fifth.

Ferrari

Red Bull and McLaren are out of reach this weekend, so Alonso qualifies fifth, surges to third at the start, then ends up defeating in a long contest with Webber for the final podium spot.

Massa is just one place behind Alonso on the grid, but nearly a second separates them in the results. The Brazilian runs fifth until hit by Hamilton, which gives him a puncture. He angrily charges back from 20th to ninth.

Mercedes

Rosberg qualifies seventh, while Schumacher sits out Q3 to save tyres and is eighth. Both make good starts, but cannot hold back Massa and Hamilton for long.

High tyre wear and the inconvenient timing of the safety car mean Rosberg loses sixth in the race to di Resta. Schumacher is not far behind his team-mate when he runs into Perez and flies into a race-ending accident.

Renault

Overheating issues mean a new bodywork package has to be removed in practice, setting up a dreadful weekend in which Senna's 15th places in qualifying and the race (after replacing a wing damage in a brush with the barriers) are as good as it gerts. Petrov is knocked out of Q2 as Senna squeezes in, so starts 18th. He only gets up to 17th in the race.

Hopes of points are high after Barrichello and Maldonado qualify 12th and 13th. But once again Williams is just not quite competitive enough. Barrichello slides to 13th with high tyre wear, and Maldonado can only make it to 11th after making one more pitstop than his team-mate and benefiting from healthier rubber in the final laps.

After showing top 10 pace all weekend, despite brake and hydraulic issues costing di Resta a lot of Friday track time, Force India gets both cars into Q3 - then sits the session out to save tyres.

But that does pay off in the race, as di Resta's long stints help him to a career best sixth. Sutil pits slightly early and profits less, finishing eighth.

Perez narrowly misses out on Q3 as he qualifies 11th, escapes being used as a launchpad by Schumacher, but can't quite fend off the very rapid Massa at the end of the race so finishes 10th rather than the ninth that had looked likely.

The Turn 10 chicane proves to be a tempting launchpad for Kobayashi all weekend, and in Q2 he launches himself straight into the wall. That leaves him 17th on the grid, and amid a strategy miscue under the safety car and a penalty for ignoring blue flags, 14th in the race is the best he can salvage.

Both drivers have to park for much of practice two on Friday - Alguersuari so his car can be checked after some violent kerb excursions, and Buemi after shunting at the penultimate corner. They qualify 14 and 16th, Buemi ahead.

Alguersuari loses ground at the start, gets a penalty for hitting Barrichello, and eventually crashes out. Buemi has a less eventful race to 12th.

Kovalainen's first Q1 lap suggests he might pip a Renault, but he ends up back in the usual 19th in the end, just ahead of Trulli. The latter gets among the midfield with a fast start, but his reward is to be hit by Alguersuari, giving him a puncture. He later retires with gearbox failure, but Kovalainen cheers the team up by beating Petrov to 16th.

Practice suggests Virgin might be within sight, but again it's a false dawn and qualify seeing HRT last again. Ricciardo beats Liuzzi to 23rd, meaning the Italian's Monza penalty has no effect.

Ricciardo hits Glock on lap one and finishes 19th. Liuzzi hits a wall sometime later and finishes 20th.

It takes big late-Q1 laps to get Glock and D'Ambrosio off the back row and ahead of the HRTs, but they manage it. Glock thinks a touch with Ricciardo on lap one has harmed his car's handling and he eventually crashes. D'Ambrosio finishes 18th.

RACE DATA

The Race in Action

Full race lap times (H)

Full race lap times (V)

Lap chart (positions)

Lap chart (gaps)