Fernando Alonso held off a charging Sebastian Vettel to take his second Singapore GP victory while Lewis Hamilton was the only title contender not to score.
In a cliffhanger of a GP, a brilliant Alonso held off title rival Sebastian Vettel in a race-long duel that saw them finish a long way clear of Mark Webber, Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg.
Lewis Hamilton failed to score after being shunted from behind by Webber in a controversial incident that saw no action taken for the Aussie's late braking move.
GP REPORT
CONDITIONS: Dry with no rain having fallen. 30C ambient, 31C track. Alguersuari elected to start from the pitlane after discovering a water leak on his Toro Rosso (ruining his best start in F1).
GRID: 1.Alonso, 2.Vettel, 3.Hamilton, 4.Button, 5.Webber 6.Barrichello, 7. Rosberg, 8.Kubica, 9.Schumacher, 10.Kobayashi, 11.Alguersuari (in pit), 12.Petrov
START:McLaren thought that they might be able to make up places at the start but as the red lights went out Vettel got one of his best starts of the year and polesitter Fernando Alonso had to put some manners on him as they headed for Turn 1. Jenson Button was actually quicker away than Lewis Hamilton and momentarily pulled ahead but Hamilton easily outbraked him into Turn 1 as Mark Webber followed through in P5. Further back, Rubens Barrichello was slow away and was easily swallowed up by Nico Rosberg and Robert Kubica.
LAP ONE ORDER: 1.Alonso, 2.Vettel, 3.Hamilton, 4.Button, 5.Webber 6. Rosberg, 7.Kubica, 8.Barrichello, 9.Schumacher, 10.Petrov
Tonio Liuzzi and Nick Heidfeld picked up damage on the opening lap. Heidfeld was able to pit, but Liuzzi parked his car out on track bringing out the first Safety Car of the afternoon. Felipe Massa (starting from P24) had already slotted into the Ferrari plan by pitting at the end of Lap 1 for the harder tyres, but as the Safety Car emerged on Lap 2, most of the back of the field followed suit ruining that cunning plan.
The back runners were joined, surprisingly, by Mark Webber from P5 who seemed to be running against the conventional strategy of the front runners. The Safety Car came in at the end of Lap 6.
LAP 6 ORDER: 1.Alonso, 2.Vettel, 3.Hamilton, 4.Button, 5. Rosberg, 6.Kubica, 7.Barrichello, 8.Schumacher, 9.Kobayashi, 10.Webber, 11.Timo Glock, 12.Petrov
To make Webber's strategy work it was important that he got past the relatively slow Schumacher and Kobayashi and luckily for Mark his first target Kobayashi made a mistake exiting Turn 4 allowing the Aussie past. By Lap 11 he was up behind Schumacher and benefited from exactly the same mistake by the seven times World Champion.
At the time, the drivers, such as Williams' Nico Hulkenberg, were complaining that the harder tyres were sliding around and much slower than the green-walled option tyre. Certainly the front-runners were able to put in times up to two seconds a lap faster than Webber. However with his pit-stop out of the way, and stops in Singapore taking 28 seconds, he managed to reduce the difference and kept well within a 28-second deficit to P3 Hamilton and P4 Button.
At the front of the race Alonso was driving immaculately with Vettel playing a watching game a couple of seconds back. Sebastian was watching the F10 gearbox and also watching his tyre wear and his brake temperature. It was quite apparent from the moment the Safety Car had come in that Alonso and Vettel were going to be in a race of their own. Hamilton was rapidly dropped and Button fell off the back of Hamilton, while Nico Rosberg kept Button in closer contention.
In midfield Timo Glock was putting up a heroic defence of 11th place, the Virgin car collecting a long train of cars that included Adrian Sutil, Nico Hulkenberg, Felipe Massa, Vitaly Petrov, Sebastian Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari. On Lap 15 Sutil finally got past Glock and once Nico Hulkenberg came alongside - pushing Glock onto the kerbs - the floodgates opened.
Fernando Alonso put in a series of fastest laps to keep Vettel behind and the gap to P2 varied from 3.2 seconds on Lap 20 to 1.8 seconds on Lap 28.
The significant lap number, though, was Lap 25, because that was when Mark Webber started to lap quicker than both Mclaren cars. At the same time he was inside the time window needed for a stop and so he would inherit P3 providing the car in front of him - Rubens Barrichello - kept lapping quickly. Which he did.
At the end of lap 29 Hamilton pitted and a lap later both Vettel and Alonso came in together. Vettel had been closing the gap to Alonso and it was assumed that Red Bull would allow their man to run longer and build a gap on the Ferrari driver. As it was they came in at the end of Lap 30 and though Vettel stuttered out of his pitbox, he managed to keep his Red Bull rolling, still in P2 though.
Jenson Button pitted at the same time and exited behind both Webber and Hamilton.
Kamui Kobayashi and Michael Schumacher had a coming together on Lap 31 that would be investigated by the stewards and a lap later the Japanese driver drove straight on into the barriers near the slow turn that disappears below a spectator grandstand. He was then collected by Bruno Senna's HRT with both cars left stuck on the racing line.
There was no choice but to bring out the Safety Car again which sent Kubica and Barrichello scurrying for their pit-stop before they were collected by the SC. As the cars formed up behind Berndt Maylander's Mercedes the order was:
LAP 34 ORDER: 1.Alonso, 2.Vettel, 3.Webber 4.Hamilton, 5.Button, 6. Rosberg, 7.Kubica, 8.Barrichello, 8.Sutil, 9.Hulkenberg, 10.Massa, 11.Petrov 12.Alguersuari
The race was restarted on Lap 36 with various lapped cars threaded into the top five, including the two Virgins. Mark Webber was delayed as he went to pass one of them and Lewis Hamilton seized on the moment as the best chance he would get. Hamilton was a car length clear on the outside, swung out to take the proper line for Turn 7 when Webber jabbed his Red Bull up the inside at the last moment.
It was a move of either supreme optimism or sheer stupidity from Webber who could see Hamilton was already turning in for the corner and Webber's front right tyre duly bounced into the rear tyre of the Mclaren pushing him over the kerbs and into retirement.
The stewards investigated it afterwards and decided it was a racing incident, though with Danny Sullivan as the driver representative on the stewards panel, they had a man with only 15 F1 races passing judgement.
From that point on it was a race to the flag with Vettel harrying the seemingly mistake-free Alonso all the way. Alonso opened the gap to 2.0 seconds on Lap 38 and it never got any greater for the remaining 45 minutes. Alonso would put in a fast lap and Vettel would respond. Vettel would put in a fast lap and Alonso would respond.
On Lap 45 Robert Kubica suddenly dashed for the pits with a right rear puncture and surrendered his sixth place to Rubens Barrichello. He rejoined in P13 and put together a mesmerising charge that took him past Buemi, Alguersuari, Massa, Hulkenberg, Petrov and finally Sutil at Turn 7 for P7 on Lap 56. Moving up six places with six separate overtaking moves in eleven laps at Singapore was no mean feat.
The final drama was played out by Heikki Kovalainen who got hit by a clumsy Sebastian Buemi and spun round. His Cosworth engine then caught fire and not realising how bad it was, he chose (or was told) to drive on past the pitlane entry by which time the back of the car was seriously aflame. Kovalainen parked it, calmly took a fire extinguisher from the pitwall, and put the fire out himself before any marshal could get to him.
While all this was happening Sebastian Vettel had closed up to within 0.2 of Alonso on the final lap, but Fernando always had the measure of him in Sector 1 and was able to keep ahead to the line, which he crossed hardly a minute before the two-hour mark.
Webber and Button followed them home a long way back, the Brit just 1.2 seconds behind the Aussie at the line. Rosberg, Barrichello, Kubica, Sutil, Hulkenberg and Massa followed them home to make up the points scorers.
(Although Sutil would be later dropped to P10 for taking advantage of a short cut across the run-off at Turn 1)
It had been another cliffhanger race for Ferrari, but unlike Monza, Alonso was error-free under the most severe pressure from Vettel in what looked to be a faster car. It was one of the drives of the season by Alonso. To win back to back races at the lowest downforce race and then the highest downforce race shows that he is the new hot favourite for the 2010 championship. And unlike Vettel or Webber, he has the racecraft to do it.
FH
Results
01. Alonso Ferrari 1h57:53.579
02. Vettel Red Bull-Renault + 0.293
03. Webber Red Bull-Renault + 29.141
04. Button McLaren-Mercedes + 30.384
05. Rosberg Mercedes + 49.394
06. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth + 56.101
07. Kubica Renault + 1:26.559
08. Sutil Force India-Mercedes + 1:52.416
09. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth + 1:52.791
10. Massa Ferrari + 1:53.297
11. Petrov Renault + 1 lap
12. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1 lap
13. Schumacher Mercedes + 1 lap
14. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1 lap
15. Di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth + 2 laps
16. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth + 3 laps
Did Not Finish
Glock Virgin-Cosworth 51
Heidfeld Sauber-Ferrari 35
Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 34
Klien HRT-Cosworth 30
Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 29
Senna HRT-Cosworth 28
Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 26
Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1
