F1 leader Hamilton wins Singapore GP

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton cruised to victory in the Singapore Grand Prix to strengthen his hold on this year’s World Championship.

Vettel has been criticized for dropping points due to some poor tactical driving this season but there was little he could do looking on from the Ferrari garage after his auto suffered a radiator fluid leak midway through the second practice session.

His win at the Singapore Grand Prix was the culmination of a weekend when he put together moments of nearly transcendent skill and a ruthless execution when it mattered that was untouchable.

Ricciardo has finished on the podium in the last four editions of the Singapore Grand Prix, including a hattrick of second places from 2015-17. “To be second is unbelievable”, Verstappen said.

Despite the ongoing engine problems, Verstappen does not believe the troubles will carry over in to the race – when the engine runs with different settings.

Verstappen, as Valtteri Bottas will attest, is notoriously hard to pass, so going wheel-to-wheel with the feisty Dutchman will not be high on his list of priorities.

A clean getaway gave Hamilton the lead at the start, and he nailed the restart following the Safety Car period before controlling a tough race that lasted one hour and 51 minutes with humidity peaking at 69%.

Passing in Singapore is very hard.

“It definitely got a little bit interesting towards the end with the backmarkers as you could already feel the draft from the cars when you were five and six seconds behind”.

“I think it’s very close”.

Vettel immediately questioned the decision, saying: “There is no chance”.

Kimi Raikkonen, who was fastest on Friday, finished 0.362 seconds behind his team mate to secure a Ferrari one-two as championship leader Lewis Hamilton performed the best of the rest but was more than half a second adrift in his Mercedes.

Hamilton was leading by four seconds over Red Bull’s second paced Dutchman Max Verstappen when he almost had his advantage wiped out at two thirds distance by some insane driving from Roman Grosjean.

Ricciardo in the other Red Bull opted to stay out a lot longer than the other front runners, eventually making his first pit stop on lap 27 and that put Hamilton in the lead again.

“If you look at how it’s been all weekend, it’s been very easy and everything’s been running smoothly”, he said.

Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas will join Vettel on the second row of the grid. “Lewis got the job done but we gave him a vehicle he could do that with”.

Putting Raikkonen on fresher tyres, potentially in clear air, and letting him set some fast laps could pressure Mercedes into pitting Hamilton earlier then they would.