Motor racing:Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel has won the Singapore Grand Prix. McLaren's Jenson Button finished second and Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) was third.
After 18 laps the two-stop strategists in Perez and Hulkenberg finally made their first stop, releasing those behind him as they were running around five seconds per lap slower.
Then on lap 23 Hamilton endured his third retirement in five races, his McLaren suffering a gearbox failure that saw him grind to a halt shortly after the first chicane. His engineer in a radio message said at one stage “we did everything we could yesterday”, suggesting an issue the team were aware of but had hoped to avoid during the race.
McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale, however, confirmed the team saw no problem with the gearbox after qualifying bearing in mind Hamilton had tapped a wall at one point on his final hot lap.
For now it leaves his title hopes again on the ropes with just six races remaining. His latest exit promoted Vettel into the lead, 2.8secs clear of Button after 28 laps, followed by Maldonado and Alonso, the latter 7.8secs down, with Di Resta a further 11.5secs adrift in fifth.
At the end of that lap, and from sixth, Webber was the first of the leaders to stop for a second time, followed by Maldonado and Alonso after 29 laps.
Singapore’s 100% record for safety cars materialised on lap 33 when the HRT of Narain Karthikeyan slid into the wall at Anderson Bridge. Unsurprisingly it triggered a raft of cars hurtling into the pits for what was effectively a free pit stop.
Whilst the safety car was on track, Maldonado was informed over the radio to retire due to a hydraulic problem. Maldonado had unfortunately dropped from fourth to 10th in the rapid round of stops, with the hydraulic issue compounding his misery.
Unusually, it meant both cars that started on the front row were forced into retirement. The safety car pitted after running for five laps, and Button nearly ran into the back of Vettel at one point shortly before the restart.
It guaranteed the race would run for the full two-hour time limit rather than 61 laps, a point exacerbated when the safety car had to be deployed again two minutes after the restart. For the second successive year at this track, Schumacher ran into the back of a rival.
On this occasion the seven-times champion was late on to his brakes, hurtling into the rear of Jean-Eric Vergne’s Toro Rosso. After clambering from their cars Schumacher and Vergne embraced one another rather than engaging in any finger pointing.
Although both cars had slid down an escape road, there was enough debris on track to force the safety car quickly back into play. After 42 laps, and at the second restart, the running order was Vettel, Button, Alonso, Di Resta, Rosberg, Grosjean and Raikkonen.
Fighting for ninth place Massa managed to squeeze bravely by Senna just before the sharp left-hand turn into Anderson Bridge, the former fighting with his car as he brushed a barrier and the Williams.
Notwithstanding, the stewards decided to investigate the incident, but again they decided no further action was required. The battle for the minor points places saw Hulkenberg involved with both Saubers, initially Perez and then Kobayashi.
The German collected the front-wing endplate of Kobayashi’s car, causing a puncture which forced them both into another stop and dropping them out of the points.
The closing stages were routine enough, with Vettel taking the flag for the second successive year at this circuit to close the gap to Alonso at the top of the standings to 29 points.
Vettel finished 8.9secs clear of Button, with Alonso third, followed by a career-high fourth for Di Resta, Rosberg, Raikkonen, Grosjean, Massa, Toro Rosso’s Daniel Ricciardo and Webber.