Nico Rosberg just had enough to hand to hold off a charging Daniel Ricciardo to claim victory at the Singapore Grand Prix.
It was the Mercedes’ driver third win in a row and moved him back to the top of the championship standings as teammate Lewis Hamilton had to settle for third.
The start of the race saw Rosberg, who has been known to have poor starts from pole, shoot off into the lead, suffering no threat from the cars behind him. Ricciardo held onto second as they took Turn 1, but there was an incident midway down the field as Nico Hulkenberg speared across the track hitting the pit wall on the inside.
Replays showed a poor start for Max Verstappen force the Toro Rosso of Carlos Sainz to go around him, that sandwiched Hulkenberg between Sainz and his teammate, Daniil Kvyat, with the Spaniard tagging the Force India and spinning him into the wall.
The 100% record of at least one Safety Car period in Singapore continue as the Mercedes SLS came out for two laps to clear away the debris. The incident was investigated by the stewards but deemed as a racing incident which even Hulkenberg agreed with.
After the restart, the race went through a lull in the action, as the drivers looked after the tyres and brakes. Just over half race distance was completed before the race picked back up again. The top four had settled on the soft compound tyres with the intentions of getting to the end of the race, this was after Red Bull had used supersofts compared to the Mercedes’ opting for the yellow-marked Pirellis at both stops.
With around 20 laps to go, Hamilton – who had lost third to Raikkonen after the Finn made a bold move at Turn 10 – pitted again for a new set of supersofts. He had a big enough advantage over fifth-placed Verstappen to pit and come back out without losing a position.
This created a chain reaction as Raikkonen followed the world champion in a lap later, fitting a used set of ultrasoft tyres. But the Ferrari driver would fall victim to the undercut as Hamilton moved back up into third, a position he would maintain until the end of the race.
Ricciardo, who had run second all race around five seconds behind Rosberg, covered the two drivers behind him as he was gifted the free pit stop. Rosberg was also going to pit, but got stuck in traffic on his in lap and lost his window which meant he had to stay out.
As hard as Ricciardo pushed to close down the leading Mercedes there were not pace in the car in the final few laps to catch Rosberg and challenge for the lead. It was close at the end – the pair crossing the line 0.4 seconds apart – but traffic and pace deemed too be too much to catch the championship leader.
Sebastian Vettel had a brilliant recovery drive, coming from the very back of the grid to take fifth for the Scuderia.
After his poor start, Verstappen used the pace of his Red Bull and tyre strategy perfectly to recover himself to sixth place. This is the second race in a row that the Dutchman has had to recover from a poor start, certainly, it is something he will be looking to rectify this the next race in Malaysia.
Fernando Alonso had a great start to see him climb up to fifth but ultimately finished seventh, ahead of Sergio Perez, Daniil Kvyat and Kevin Magnussen – who rounded off the top ten. Alonso and Perez both stuck on a two-stop strategy, running their soft compound tyres until the end of the race. They were the only two in the top ten to do this.
Esteban Gutierrez was unlucky as, for the fifth time this season, he finished just outside of the points in 11th place. The Mexican has yet to score a point for Haas this season.
Carlos Sainz Jr was also unlucky as the contact with Hulkenberg off the start damaged his right barge board. The team were willing to fix this in their first pit stop but the track marshals deemed it too dangerous and gave the Spaniard the black and orange flag, forcing him to pit early and out of sequence. He finished P14.
Along with Hulkenberg, three other drivers were lost from the race. Romain Grosjean failed to even make the start as the brake issue that had hindered him in qualifying returned. He was due to start from the pitlane but never took the start at all.
Valtteri Bottas retired about halfway through the race after a bizarre set of circumstances. His seat belts had to be refastened at his second pit stop, but as he was sat stationary his engine overheated. Jenson Button was the final retiree of the race.
