Stewards rule no blame in Singapore opening lap crash

Verstappen was pinched between the Ferraris of Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen on the run to the first corner, causing all three cars to collide and resulting in a secondary incident that also collected Fernando Alonso.

The race now running to time, Hamilton was able to quickly pull away from Ricciardo again on the restart, but was told by Mercedes to drop back and keep the field together just in case of another safety vehicle.

Championship rival Lewis Hamilton, who leads Vettel by three points in the standings, could only qualify fifth as the Mercedes struggled in high downforce conditions.

The third Singapore win, seventh of the season and 60th overall will further boost the morale of Hamilton who had only taken the lead from Vettel two weeks ago in Italy.

Seconds later, Vettel then lost his front wing and fluid was pouring out of the Ferrari, allowing Hamilton to negotiate his way through the carnage and storm through to the front.

Sebastian Vettel crashed out of the Singapore Grand Prix (Yong Teck Lim/AP) Vettel celebrated his pole here as though it was a victory, and who could blame him?

The 32-year-old said:…

In one of the most exciting races at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, made more unpredictable by the rain, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel blasted off from pole position with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen second on the grid. Made contact and that was it.

Vettel played down the effect of the incident on his title chances.

After a few laps behind the safety auto, the race resumed on lap 7 with huge spray flying up from the cars.

The incident brought out the safety vehicle and allowed Hamilton into a lead he would keep through two more safety auto periods and a perfectly timed switch to dry-weather tyres.

The race restarted with 25 minutes left of the two-hour limit and Hamilton once again did not give Ricciardo a sniff and soon opened up a two second gap.

On lap 11 Daniil Kvyat outbraked himself at Turn 7 and buried his Toro Rosso in the wall beyond the run-off area. Bottas moved up to third by not pitting and Carlos Sainz was elevated to fourth on the same strategy. While the top drivers six opted for intermediate tyres, others chose to get full wets.

By the next re-start on lap 15, Ricciardo had changed tires, but Hamilton hadn’t.

“Hamilton, who has 4.8 million followers on Twitter, told fans on Snapchat earlier in the week that he was going to watch the Netflix documentary “What the Health” and was “on a mission” to go vegan”.

“Driver of vehicle 7 [Räikkönen] had a very good start and was able to attempt overtaking of auto 33 [Verstappen] on the left hand side”, read a note from the stewards. Renault’s Jolyon Palmer scored his first ever points of the season finishing in sixth place. Romain Grosjean took ninth ahead of Esteban Ocon’s Force India in the final points paying position in tenth.