Lewis
Hamilton of Mercedes AMG Petronas is now leading the F1 drivers’ standings
after a cool win in Singapore. It was Round 14 of the 2014 FIA Formula One
World Championship. Lewis Hamilton registered his win in the 2014 Formula 1
Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix which took place over 61 laps of the
floodlit 5.065km Marina Bay Street Circuit.
Lewis’s
teammate Nico Rosberg ran into terrible luck as he had to retire early on in
the race with some technical glitches in his car.
The
Singapore race is the longest of the year in terms of duration and combined
with Singapore’s high humidity and temperatures, it is also a gruelling test of
stamina for participants and cars. For Lewis it was his second win in the
Singapore Grand Prix. He now leads the 2014 drivers’ championship. Lewis leaps
three points ahead of teammate Rosberg in the drivers’ standings. Sebastian
Vettel of Infiniti Red Bull racing came
in second while his teammate Ricciardo followed in third position. For Vettel
it was the best result of the season with second while for Ricciardo it was
another podium place.
Fernando
Alonso of Ferrari came in fourth followed by Felipe Massa of William-Mercedes
and Jean-Eric Vergne of STR-Renault (Torro Rosso). Sergio Perez of Force
India-Mercedes came home seventh, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari), Nico Hulkenberg (Force India-Mercedes) and Kevin Magnussen of
McLaren-Mercedes.
The
race started with the front row of the gird with Lewis Hamilton and Nico
Rosberg. Daniel Ricardo and Sebastian Vettel formed row two. Two-time Singapore
victor Fernando Alonso in a revitalised Ferrari was behind them while teammate
Kimi Raikkonen was in 7th position.
Williams’
Felipe Massa was in sixth while his teammate Valtteri Bottas was eight.
Mclaren’s Kevin Magnussen and Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat completed the top ten
on the grid. All of them stated with Pirelli’s red-marked supersoft tyres. The
soft tryes were yellow-marked. The strategy was to start with supersofts and
then move on to softs at the end.
Nico
Rosberg had some technical problems with his steering wheel on the way to the
grid but it was resolved immediately. For
Rosberg it was disaster from the beginning as his car was moved to the pit
lane. Later in lap 14, Rosebrg pitted again as he could not get the car back
into gear. The race was over for him.
Hamilton
led the pack mostly during the race. Kamui Kobayashi of Caterham-Renault retired
in the beginning only. In lap 19, Esteban Gutierrez too retired from the race
after parking his Sauber-Ferrari. He had an electrical problem with his power
unit.
Lap
31 saw Sergio Perez come back out and lose his front wing after a clash with
Adrian Sutil of Sauber-Ferrari. The safety car was deployed. But then Perez
took on a new front wing and rejoined the race. Lap 41 saw Sutil pull into the
garage. It was a double Did Not finish (DNF) for Sauber as their disastrous
season continued. He retired because of loss of water pressure.
Two
weeks later the next race is now slated for Japan.
Picture of Lewis Hamilton’s car during the
qualifying round, courtesy Daimler