Alonso wins in Singapore GP 2010

Alonso does the double in Singapore

Fernando Alonso has won the Singapore GP after starting on pole, and fighting off competition from the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel. Lewis Hamilton’s championship charge suffered another set-back, while Mark Webber came back from a disappointing qualifying to finish on the podium.

After dominating in Free Practice, Vettel was expected to take pole in qualifying on Saturday, however, in the end it went to Alonso. While one Ferrari was enjoying success, the other was not as a gearbox problem meant that Felipe Massa would be starting last on the grid, having failed to set a qualifying lap time before the problem. The championship battle was also nicely poised as the top five in the championship, were in the top five positions on the grid. There were also two different drivers on the grid in the shape of Christian Klien (in for Yamamoto) and Nick Heidfeld, making a return to F1 in the place of Pedro de la Rosa.

When the lights went out at the start of the race, the leading cars got away cleanly and stayed in position. However further back there was contact and Nick Heidfeld was forced to pit - not a great start on his return to F1. He was involved in an incident with the two Force Indias and Vitantonio Liuzzi was forced to retire. Massa tried to take advantage of his poor starting position by pitting after one lap to change tyres. Any advantage was soon negated when the Safety Car was deployed to allow the stewards to clear away Liuzzi’s car. While the Safety Car was out a number of cars streamed into the pits, including Webber. Under the SC Vettel was reminded by his engineer to “remember the 10 car length rule” while behind the SC, to avoid any penalties like he received in Hungary. The SC was called in on lap five and racing resumed.

Kamui Kobayashi and Michael Schumacher were involved in a close battle for position, while Nico Hulkenberg and Vitaly Petrov had a coming together, but both continued. It soon transpired that the harder compound tyres were not working as well as the softs, as Webber was four tenths of a second slower in the first sector alone. Due to the SC period, Glock ended up in 11^th place, however, a train of cars started to build behind the Virgin Racing car - including Sutil, Hulkenberg, Massa, Petrov and the two Toro Rosso cars. It took a few laps for them to get past, but when Sutil finally made the move stick, he was soon followed by the other cars in quick succession.

Meanwhile up at the front Vettel was asked to “cool the brakes a little”. He then went on to fire a warning at the Ferrari, by posting the fastest lap of the race but telling his engineer that he wasn’t pushing. Hamilton had been dropping quite a bit behind the leading pair, but his lap times soon began to improve slightly. He was given the hurry up by the team, asked to find three tenths of a second, to try and cover Webber. He was unable to do so, however, when his rear tyres (and the rear tyres of his team-mate) started to cause problems because of their rate of wear. When the leaders pitted, there was no change at the top. Kobayashi and Schumacher’s battle continued, and was put to an end when they touched, sending Schumacher’s car into a spin and he was sent into the barriers. He was able to continue, however, and pitted on the same lap. Schumacher was told over the radio that the team were not sure that his car was ok, and that he shouldn’t “commit”. A lap later the Safety Car was deployed again when Kobayashi finally lost control of his car and put it into the barrier, and was soon joined by Bruno Senna in his HRT.

The race was restarted on lap 35 and the two Virgin Racing cars had ended up between Vettel in second and Webber in third. While lapping the second of the two cars, Hamilton got in Webber’s slipstream and while trying to pass him around the outside of turn seven, Webber ran out of room and the pair connected causing another disappointing retirement for Hamilton. Webber on the other hand was able to continue, and the contact was put down to a racing incident. They were not the only pair to come to blows at that corner as Heidfeld and Schumacher also tangled in the same place, putting an end to Heidfeld’s race. Kubica soon showed everyone how it was done, after pulling off a string of moves on Buemi, Petrov, Massa and Hulkenberg, he successfully passed Sutil at the corner which had caused problems for others. Up at the front Alonso and Vettel continued to trade fastest laps.

The final drama of the race came in the penultimate lap when Kovalainen tangled with Buemi which caused a fire in the back of Kovalainen’s Lotus. Instead of driving into the pits (which Mike Gascoyne revealed was because there were too many people around) Kovalainen continued onto the pit straight, and while the flames continued to spread he calmly got out of the car and took the fire extinguisher himself and put out the fire. Vettel managed to pull up behind Alonso, however it proved to be too little too late and Alonso took the chequered flag ahead of Vettel (who told his engineer over the radio: “we will get them, don‘t you worry“), Webber, Button, Rosberg, Barrichello, Kubica, Sutil, Hulkenberg and Massa. This result really shakes the championship up with Red Bull pulling out a bigger lead over McLaren, and Alonso jumping Hamilton in the Drivers Championship. The racing continues in two weeks in Japan, and with things changing all the time, and Ferrari on a charge - who knows what will happen! 

Posted by Hannah Hough - Follow her on twitter @hannahhou.

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