Alonso Wins Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix, Hamilton Crashes

Fernando Alonso took his Ferrari from pole to checkered in the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix, leading every lap, setting fastest lap, and moving to second in championship points.

“This win means a lot,” Alonzo told the post-race press conference. “Coming from Monza we knew that that was a unique layout, so we wanted to confirm in a normal track—even if Singapore is still a very special layout as well—but with more downforce that the car is performing well.

“Singapore physically is maybe the toughest race of the season. Two hours with this humidity in a street circuit with no time to breathe, 24, 25 corners, so it was tough to drive.

“This win means a lot to keep in the fight in the championship. We know there are still four races to go but it seems we can be competitive on any track.”

Alonso’s Ferrari was the dominant car on the track from the start of the race. Alonso made a strong start, cutting sharply in front of Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull to gain position into Turn 1, opened a gap, and was never threatened until the final few laps, when Vettel got within a few tenths, but never close enough to set up a pass.

Vettel drove a good race, making only one small error—staying in second gear in a pit stop—but the Red Bull simply wasn’t fast enough for Alonso’s Ferrari. Vettel was advised to take care of the Red Bull’s brakes early in the race, but later on when Vettel went flat out, he still couldn’t catch the Ferrari.

Vettel seemed resigned to his second-place finish at the post-race press conference. “I tried to push [Alonso] as hard as I could into a mistake. He didn’t do a major mistake—as he said it is difficult to overtake here and it would have been too risky, so in the end we got away with second, good points.

“In the end it is good to get good points for the team. It helps us a lot in the Constructors’ Championship and in the Drivers’ Championship everything is still very much open.”

Early Incident Affects Strategy

Alonso took the lead at the start, and the field made it around without incident for the first two laps.

A collision between Sauber’s Nic Heidfeld and Force India’s Vitantonio Liuzzi on lap three, brought out the safety car. Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, who had started from the back, came in for tires, along with Red Bull’s Mark Webber. Much of the back half of the field pitted, but none of the front.

Webber rejoined the field in 11th, behind the top 10, which had yet to stop for tires; theoretically Webber was in a very good position. If he kept close, he could take the lead when the leaders pitted under green.

Webber didn’t count on Alonso being so fast; by the time the leaders pitted to replace their worn tires on lap 29, Alonso had enough of a gap to rejoin just ahead of Webber, retaining the lead.

Behind the leaders, Kamui Kobayashi was having an eventful run. He hipchecked Michael Schumacher into the tire barrier on lap 28, and on lap 32 jammed himself into the barrier at Turn 18, where he was rammed by Bruno Senna. This brought out the safety car again.

Hamilton Crashes Again

Alonso made a great restart and immediately began stretching his lead over Vettel, while Lewis Hamilton began chasing down Mark Webber, whose tires were considerably less fresh.

Hamilton caught Webber entering Turn 7. Webber had had difficulty passing a backmarker approaching the turn, and Hamilton thought he had sufficient momentum to pass the Red Bull driver on the outside.

Hamilton got halfway past Webber and turned sharply left across the Red Bull’s nose. Webber was already on the curb, and had nowhere to go except into the McLaren. The damage knocked Hamilton out of the race, while Webber continued on to take third.

After reviewing the film, it seems Hamilton got impatient; if he had given Webber a bit more room he should have come out ahead anyway, having more momentum, or at least he could have held his position into Turn 8, where he would have held the inside.

Hamilton’s remarks after the incident reflect his portion of the responsibility for the wreck.

“I saw that [Webber] made a mistake, and had got caught up with the backmarkers, so I was in position to slipstream him. I was on the outside going into Turn 7, and he was in my blind spot, just behind me,” Hamilton told SPEED-TV’s Will Buxton, after the crash.

“I thought I’d got sufficiently past him, though. I braked, turned in, and tried to leave enough room for him on the inside—and the next thing I knew I’d got clipped, my tire was blown, and that was it. But, as the saying goes, I guess that’s motor racing.”

Indeed. That is also a second championship slipping away.

Hamilton crashed on the first lap at Monza, trying to force his way past Fernando Alonso. With two DNF’s in two races, he is doing all he can to help his WDC rivals.

The incident cost Hamilton more than third place; it allowed Webber to increase his lead to 20 points over the 2008 champion, while also letting Alonso into second place in the points, nine ahead of Hamilton.

The wreck also hurts McLaren’s chances in the Constructors’ Championship. With Ferrari suddenly finding the pace and Hamilton crashing two races in a row, Ferrari leads by 24.

Hamilton needs to hope bad luck—or bad judgment—strikes his opponents. With four races left, Hamilton will need to finish in the top three and several places ahead of his rivals to have a chance at another WDC.

There is a good bit of controversy over the stewards’ non-call, as may be expected. Hamilton was more than half a car length ahead when he cut across Webber’s nose. However, Webber had the preferred line, and Hamilton as the overtaking driver, has the obligation to pass safely, which includes leaving room for the other car to stay on the track.

Renault’s Robert Kubica, who made a stellar run after having a flat tire late in the race, passed Adrian Sutil in the same fashion, in the same corner, and did so safely and cleanly. Hamilton, for whatever reason, decided to slam the door on Webber, and got his fingers caught in the hinge.

Alonso at Ease

Fernando Alonso seemed to be at ease through the rest of the race, managing the gap to Vettel at whatever size he wanted it to be. Even though the Red Bull driver pulled to within two seconds in the final few laps, Alonso never let him close enough to actually threaten.

It was a great day for Ferrari, with Alonso winning and Felipe Massa finishing eighth after starting from the back of the grid. Further, Ferrari wisely put a new motor in Massa’s car; since he was already last, the five-spot penalty was meaningless, and now Massa has a fresh motor for the rest of the season.

Red Bull didn’t do badly, with Vettel and Webber second and third. What is more important, is that they didn’t do that well, compared to predictions. A high-downforce track like Singapore is their bread-and-butter; if they can’t win here, where can they?

 

Finnish Firefighter

To add a final dramatic twist to the event, Heikki Kovalainen showed everybody what “cool under fire” means in F1. When a fire erupted in the rear of his Lotus on lap 60, the flaming Finn coolly continued to circulate, passing the pits so as not to bring his flaming car near all that fuel.

Kovalainen pulled over past the pits, calmly climbed out of the car as the flames grew, then called for a portable fire extinguisher to be passed to him through the catch fencing.

While the safety crew looked for the best way around the barrier (as the rest of the field raced by at full speed) the Lotus driver extinguished the fire on his own.

By the time the fire crew arrived, the excitement was over and Kovalainen was standing around watching the race.

Ferrari Resurgent, Red Bull Fading?

Ferrari has made an amazing comeback in the second half of the season. After a disastrous 2009 and a slow start this year, Ferrari is looking like, … well, Ferrari, putting fast drivers in fast cars at the head of the field in F1.

After finishing 1–2 at Bahrain, Ferrari averaged 8th for the next nine races, with only two podiums. They finished 1–2 at Hockenheim, then 2–4 at Hungary. Spa was a disappointment as Massa DNF’d while Alonso managed only fourth, followed by a 1–3 at Monza and another Alonso win at Singapore.

Forget flex-wings, flex-floors, whatever. Ferrari has found the formula to make their cars work.

Meanwhile Red Bull, which looked like the best car on the grid for much of the season, has three podiums, but no wins, in the past three races. Their cars seem to be fast, still—but the rest of the field seems to be catching up.

Possibly their “flex-wings” or “flex-floors” gave them an edge; if so, they haven’t entirely lost it despite losing the trick parts. Whatever has changed, or with all the things that have changed, Red Bull no longer looks to be head and shoulders beyond the crowd, hampered only by its drivers’ inabilities to play well together.

Suzuka has been a winning venue for Vettel, Hamilton, and Alonso. The question is, if the McLarens have their top speed advantage, and the Ferraris keep getting faster, as they have been—will Red Bull, down on top speed and apparently no longer miles ahead in handling, have a chance?

Should Hamilton win and Webber finish fifth or sixth behind both Ferraris and McLarens, the McLaren driver would again be just a handful of points behind. th behind both Ferraris and McLarens, the McLaren driver would again be just a handful of points behind.

The 2010 Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix starts at 3 p.m. local time on Oct. 10 (that’s 2 a.m. EDT.)

Ticket and Travel packages are available through the Formula1.com tickets and Travel web page.

The race will air live on SPEED-TV in the United States.

World Drivers’ Championship Points 2010
	Driver	Team	Points
1	Mark Webber	RBR-Renault	202
2	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	191
3	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	182
4	Sebastian Vettel	RBR-Renault	181
5	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	177
6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	128
7	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	122
8	Robert Kubica	Renault	114
9	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	47
10	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	46

Constructors’ Points 2010
	Team	Points
1	RBR-Renault	383
2	McLaren-Mercedes	359
3	Ferrari	319
4	Mercedes GP	168
5	Renault	133
6	Force India-Mercedes	60
7	Williams-Cosworth	56
8	BMW Sauber-Ferrari	27
9	STR-Ferrari	10
10	Lotus-Cosworth	0
11	HRT-Cosworth	0
12	Virgin-Cosworth	0

2010 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix
	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Retired	Pts
1	8	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	61	1:57:53.579	25
2	5	Sebastian Vettel	RBR-Renault	61	+0.2 secs	18
3	6	Mark Webber	RBR-Renault	61	+29.1 secs	15
4	1	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	61	+30.3 secs	12
5	4	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	61	+49.3 secs	10
6	9	Rubens Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	61	+56.1 secs	8
7	11	Robert Kubica	Renault	61	+86.5 secs	6
8	7	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	61	+113.3 secs	4
9	14	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	61	+122.4 secs	2
10	10	Nico Hulkenberg	Williams-Cosworth	61	+132.8 secs	1
11	12	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	60	+1 Lap
12	17	Jaime Alguersuari	STR-Ferrari	60	+1 Lap
13	3	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	60	+1 Lap
14	16	Sebastien Buemi	STR-Ferrari	60	+1 Lap
15	25	Lucas di Grassi	Virgin-Cosworth	59	+2 Laps
16	19	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus-Cosworth	58	+3 Laps
Ret	24	Timo Glock	Virgin-Cosworth	49	Hydraulics
Ret	22	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber-Ferrari	36	Accident
Ret	2	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	35	Accident
Ret	20	Christian Klien	HRT-Cosworth	31	Hydraulics
Ret	23	Kamui Kobayashi	BMW Sauber-Ferrari	30	Accident
Ret	21	Bruno Senna	HRT-Cosworth	29	Accident
Ret	18	Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Cosworth	27	Hydraulics
Ret	15	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Force India-Mercedes	1	Accident damage

Note: Sutil and Hulkenberg had 20 seconds added to their race times for gaining an advantage by leaving the track on lap one.