Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton secured a fourth win in five races, beating Max Verstappen to victory at the Singapore Grand Prix while Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel could only manage third.
Polesitter Hamilton dominated the race to extend his points lead over title rival Vettel to 40 points with six rounds remaining.
Red Bull’s Verstappen posed the biggest threat to Hamilton’s victory, despite the Red Bull driver briefly losing second place to Vettel on the run to Turn 7 on the opening lap.
Making his one and only pitstop earlier than Verstappen, Vettel lost time behind Sergio Perez immediately after his stop. When Verstappen pitted four laps later, he was able to jump the Ferrari to retake second place.
Vettel, who had fitted the faster but less durable ultrasoft tyre at his pitstop, ended up falling further behind the soft-shod Verstappen as the stint progressed.
Verstappen briefly challenged Hamilton when the race leader encountered heavy traffic, with Sergey Sirotkin and Romain Grosjean fighting outside the points.
Closing to the rear wing of Hamilton, Verstappen was not able to squeeze passed on the run to the 90-degree left-hander Turn 10.
Extending the lead to 8.9 seconds, Hamilton comfortably claimed the chequered flag with Verstappen in second. Vettel was nearly 30 seconds adrift of the Red Bull, but retained third.
Valtteri Bottas faced significant pressure from Kimi Raikkonen in the closing stages. Bottas in fourth was unable to close up to lap Nico Hulkenberg – equipped with fresh tyres in the latter part of the race – and slipped into the clutches of the Ferrari.
Raikkonen regularly threatened with DRS, but could not make an overtake on the Mercedes. He finished the race in fifth.
Daniel Ricciardo stretched his hypersoft tyres to lap 27 of 61 before making his only pitstop – 10 laps further than Bottas and nine more than Raikkonen.
With a tyre advantage late one, he closed in on the battle for fourth but was unable to sustain a challenge and finished in sixth.
Securing McLaren’s best result since the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in April, Fernando Alonso finished in seventh.
Alonso, Carlos Sainz Jr and Charles Leclerc in seventh, eighth and ninth respectively, all started outside the top 10 and with a free choice of tyres in the opening stint.
Running longer before their pitstops, they jumped Sergio Perez, Hulkenberg and Romain Grosjean who were all held up in traffic after making early pitstops from starting on the hypersoft.
Hulkenberg was eventually able to recover to finish 10th. Grosjean and Perez lost significant ground battling Williams’ Sergey Sirotkin mid-race.
Perez turned into the Williams driver while the pair duelled side-by-side. The Force India driver was issued a drivethrough penalty as a result, and Grosjean later received a five-second time penalty for ignoring blue flags during his own tussle with Sirotkin.
Grosjean ended up 15th and Perez 16th, while Sirotkin was last of the finishers in 19th.
Esteban Ocon was the only retirement after he was squeezed into the wall by team-mate Perez at Turn 3 on the opening lap. The incident triggered the race’s only safety car intervention.
