I would say the lights have now fallen on another race, but in this case the lights had fallen before the start replaced by their artificial counterparts emblazoning the track in the electric illumination. And it was underneath the mechanical lights that a wholly different breed of machinery did battle, and what a battle it turned out to be. There were angry drivers, happy drivers, and airborne drivers, and at the front of the race, more dominance was on the cards from that German Bloke placing his championship
This was one of the few times where I actually got some of the pre-race estimations right - a massive gap did open behind the division one entries and the mid-field were bunched up together in groups. Bernd Maylander was able to add to his time in the lead as expected at what turned out to be a rather well timed intervention to the race. It was another day of contrasting fortunes with drivers falling away on pace and falling over each other, differing tyre strategies came and went, positions shifted and swapped. All under a serene Singapore night sky,
Here is how the 14th race of the season unfolded.
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| Credit to F1Fanatic.co.uk for the image |
The Race
The cars gathered upon a floodlit grid, with 61 laps of motor-racing lying in front of them extending out into the night. Twitter reports from Ferrari claimed that the initial threat of rain that was postulated after qualifying had faded and that the race was going to be conducted in the dry. Taking out one element from a race which runs close to the 120 minute time limit on the racing, the rest of the variables however remained including the tyres and the all important risk of a Safety Car.
Starting lights ran through the sequence ready to unleash the 24 cars into the darkness, with Liuzzi allowed to start 24th instead of 29th like I suggested yesterday. Down at the opposite end Vettel made a rather uncontested start and vanished in to the distance. Webber didn't fare as well losing places to Button and Alonso while defending from Hamilton, who lost several places backing out of the manoeuvre to fall Behind the two Mercedes cars.
It was a safe contact free start to the race, until it came to the back of the field where Ricciardo decided his car wanted to mate with Timo Glock in the Virgin racing car. Damaging Daniel's front wing which detached and caused a front puncture. The contact also damaged Timo's rear suspension making the car challenging to drive contributing to the no-longer-a-virgin racing machine to spin into the wall on the entry to the grandstand tunnel at turn 18.
Back to the top end of the grid, Button and the German Bloke had build a commanding break from the rest of the grid with Vettel a considerable distance clear as Alonso was holding up the rest of the division one pack. A pack minus Hamilton who after the opening lap found himself with his best friend from Monza - the Mercedes of Michael Schumacher. This time however he was able to scythe past Michael and Rosberg in quick succession to bring Lewis back up to the back of division one where Ferrari were running out of tyre life.
Webber was the first to take the initiative against the Ferrari he was boxed in behind, using his superior tyre condition to cut underneath Fernando at turn 14 before sweeping round the outside of 15. Mark now becoming the master of passing Alonso in the most unusual places starting with the mega pass on him in Spa at Eau Rouge. A title which he would certainly extend on later...
This signalled the first round of stops starting with Fernando, followed later by Massa and Hamilton who pitted together - and then exited in the same order - the McLaren stuck behind the Ferrari. A scenario which never goes well with Lewis, especially a car that he had a run in with in Q3, combined with the team encouraging Hamilton to be less conservative. Pile all those factors together and the outcome was inevitable, a clumsy look at the outside of the Ferrari resulted in contact - Lewis lost a front wing and Massa gained a puncture. The McLaren driver was also awarded a drive through penalty yet another stewards intervention for Hamilton once again applying his loyalty card for the officials.
Throughout the opening pit-stops Webber was dropped behind Alonso, while Hamilton and Massa found themselves on the same piece of tarmac once more, on this occasion the Ferrari had weaker tyres slipping wide. Opening the door for Lewis in a contact free overtaking manoeuvre. Alternate strategies were coming into play - the Force Indias were running long into the race and by doing so had jumped the Mercedes team and who were back running with One-Stop Perez.
Rosberg was at the head of the queue, but fell foul of the marbles building on the final corner - One-stop Perez gained the place only for Nico to throw it back down the inside into turn one. The German nudged Sergio onto the run-off area, this brought Michael right up to the back of the battling pair, applying the DRS to attack the Sauber who defended the position. As that position lay outside of Schumacher's grasp another opportunity arose for another award - the high jump record for the weekend. Now Michael being Michael he decided to bend the rules on this competition - instead of waiting until the turn 10 chicane where the other efforts were made, he took a different approach. Using One-Stop Perez as the take off ramp sailing into the air with ease before crashing down and into the barriers shedding parts and pieces across the track. As predicted the race was to be interrupted by the Safety Car right on half distance.
Yes that is only the 50% mark so might be a good time to get some tea ready for the second half - a long race on the television tends to result in a long old end of weekend summation.
It took a long time for the cars to line up ready for the restart, Vettel had a brace of lapped cars between and nearest rival Button, which allowed him to once more vanish off into the twilight zone as everyone else negotiated the out of position cars. Webber re-opened his account of passing Alonso in the most challenging of places, this time choosing the abysmal turn 10 chicane - Mark managed to turn the most atrocious corner in the universe into a passing zone. The Safety Car cancelled out most of Hamilton's penalty placing him right behind the cars in front - and using the DRS was able to defeat the two Force Indias, Rosberg and Perez - who was still running after being run over by a Mercedes. Moving him up to 5th.
Division one was settled for the run to the end, a monumental gulf opening up to Di Resta - the leader of division two. The second group were remaining on their current set of tyres and were running 4-6s per lap slower than the division one cars. Up front the lead runners found the end of their tyre life and had to swap the old rubber for new to avoid falling into the same phase as the cars pursuing the Force India of Di Resta. Vettel's stop wasn't trouble free almost being collected by Jarno Trulli who was released into his path. In a phase of the race which didn't go too well for Trulli having been hit off camera by Jaime El Incognito causing a puncture on the Lotus for which Jaime was penalised. Jarno then retired a few laps later with a gearbox failure.
Due to the his drive-through, Hamilton re-emerged after the final stop back down behind all the cars he had to pass on the restart, however now on much superior tyres regaining the places was effortless for the McLaren and was soon back up to 5th. Having being caught out on strategy by the Safety car Massa had finally caught back to the tail end of the points which was subject to an inter-team battle within Williams for the last point.
Contrary to popular belief there were some cars towards the front and Two-Cakes-Up Button was making a charge towards Vettel gaining on the Red Bull through lapped traffic. And it was in this lapped traffic that Massa managed to steal the last point from Rubens while the leaders passed through, the gain and loss of time between the two Jenson and that German Bloke out front favoured the McLaren as the laps ticked down. Next up for lappery was the group containing the Force Indias, Rosberg and Perez with Massa following the leaders to the back of the group.
With two laps to go Jaime Alguersuari binned his car into the wall on the way into the tunnel, which would normally cause a safety car but considering the time left it was better covered under double waved yellows. The crash had no impact on the overall result and that German bloke crossed the line first once more, with Button in second preventing Vettel from winning the title, although he only needs one more point in the last five races. There is a decent chance that might happen.
Rounding off the podium was Webber in the second Red Bull, ahead of Alonso and Hamilton with Di Resta the last car on the lead lap narrowly avoiding being lapped in the final sector of the race. The rest of the points were filled by Rosberg, Sutil, while Massa passed One-Stop Perez on the final lap to claim ninth from the Mexican.
The Official Bonus Points Championship points winners.
With the actual championships pretty much summed up now with only one point needed for Vettel to win the title, attention turns now to the more important and very open bonus points championship. Here there are 60 points on the table any one of the 51 contenders can take the crown and that's just the scorers so far. But that number will start to fall after the winners from the Singapore GP.
10pts - Paul Di Resta - For being the lead division two finisher, beating the factory Mercedes team and staying on the lead lap, albeit only just
8pts - Mark Webber - For being able to use turn 10 for the forces of good rather than the forces of evil it was created with
6pts - Lewis Hamilton - For being able to pass most of the cars he raced with without contact, before and after the collision with Massa
5pts - Heikki Kovalainen - For being able to beat a Renault Squadron car piloted by wing commander Petrov on pace over the duration of the race
4pts - The Blog fish - For still being alive despite some tank swapping due to some hostility
3pts - One-Stop Perez - For still salvaging a point despite being mounted by an elderly German
2pts - Michael Schumacher - For taking over the high score record from Kobayashi albeit cheating using Perez as a launch ramp
1pt - John - Gets a point for hosting the outside broadcast solo and crafting the post-race food.
The Also Official Penalties Championship
After the penalty free weekend in Monza they certainly made up for it this weekend with two more incidents under-investigation due to the participants retiring afterwards. But so far here are the penalties offered up from the decided on track infringements
- Lewis Hamilton- Drive through - For making friends with Massa once more
- Kamui Kobayashi - Drive through - For ignoring blue flags on the restart
- Jaime Alguersuari - Drive through - For hitting Jarno Trulli off camera causing a puncture on the Lotus
With pit lane incident for Trulli released into Vettel being investigated and Schumacher's flight also investigated post-race
The Still Official Dubious Dealings Championship
Now in addition to the FIA sanctions where will the penalty points fall for the race and they are as follows.
- Original Fish - For wanting to eat the official Blog Fish in the original tank, it is difficult to apply a drive through to a fish so penalty point has been given instead.
Well that is the only penalty point to be offered, the officials took care of most of it this weekend.
Looking ahead to Japan
From the streets of Singapore F1 now flies out to outstanding circuit in Suzuka - built with supreme flow and speed in mind opening with a thrilling first sector. One of the really entertaining tracks to drive - at least in the simulator - featuring another unique feature of the season, starting to collect unique features at this point in the season. But Suzuka boasts the only figure-of-eight layout of the season where the circuit loops over itself on the exit of the second degner corner.
Out of the final races of the year the Japanese GP does offer the most sensational layout remaining, pushing both the cars and drivers to the limit. Last year it saw wheels falling off cars all over the place from contact and from failures so more excitement could be on the horizon.
In the days of Schumacher dominance Japan was often the scene of the title decider, where it was placed mathematically out of range of the chasing pack. And this year that scenario has arisen once more with a German bloke with an almost certain chance of claiming that single point needed to thwart Button's impossible challenge. It two weeks time will history repeat itself... will the Blog fish still be the official mascot so until next time these questions will remain unanswered. Farewell from the blog for now.
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