Lewis Hamilton has extended his championship lead to 40 points in flawless fashion, winning a Singapore Grand Prix which was seemingly destined to be ruled by title challenger Sebastian Vettel.
Mercedes has historically struggled around Singapore’s streets – in 2015 and ’17, the two Silver Arrows locked-out only the third row of the grid. Combined with Ferrari’s supposed car advantage this season; this was Vettel’s race to lose.
However, a flawless lap from Hamilton in qualifying allowed him to storm to pole position and beat Vettel by 0.6s, while a similarly magic lap from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen compounded the Ferrari misery and demoted Vettel to third on the grid.
An aggressive strategy to pit early and fit the ultrasoft tyre ultimately proved to be the wrong decision for Vettel in the race. He lost out through the pitstop cycle in a battle with Verstappen and was consigned to third place while Hamilton took a comfortable win.
Hamilton’s fourth win in five races could be a hammer blow in the context of the championship.
Here are our Singapore Grand Prix DRIVER RATINGS;
