Straight to the point as ever, Niki Lauda summed up the outcome of the Singapore Grand Prix: “If I had my way, I would give Sebastian Vettel the World Championship right now because of his drive today.”
Lauda doesn’t hand out praise lightly and knows exactly what he’s talking about. Apart from winning the title three times, the Austrian is speaking as non-executive chairman of Mercedes F1, one of several teams attempting unsuccessfully to defeat Vettel and Red Bull. The night race in Singapore was another demonstration by this combination of how to dominate a difficult motor race and make it look easy.
Lauda saw his team’s slim hope disappear at the third corner, a few seconds into the longest race (in terms of time) on the calendar. Nico Rosberg had failed by less than a 1/10th of a second to stop Vettel from winning his fifth pole position of the season but Rosberg made the better start and put his silver Mercedes down the inside of the dark-blue Red Bull to claim the line into the first corner.
Then Vettel demonstrated just why he is a triple world champion on course to his fourth title when he braked early, ducked behind Rosberg and took the inside line through turn two and into turn three when the Mercedes ran wide. Vettel was never headed again.
By the end of three laps, he was 5,6 seconds ahead, and so it went on; a familiar story if you’ve been following recent races here on the CAR website.
The only time the opposition got a sniff was just before half distance when Daniel Ricciardo was one of surprisingly few drivers to make a mistake on this bumpy street circuit. The Toro Rosso going nose first into the barrier at a blind left-hander brought out the safety car and closed the field. There was a lull of six laps. And then Vettel simply carried on where he had left off.
Showing devastatingly relentless pace, he opened a lead of nearly 30 seconds in 14 laps; enough to allow a second and final change of tyres without a hint of any threat from the second-place man. Who, by this time, was Fernando Alonso.
Once again, this was wonderful opportunism from the Spaniard as he wrestled his Ferrari onto seventh on the grid, made an arrow-straight start down the outside, emerging from the third corner in third place.
Alonso was always in the hunt for a podium place and made the most of the safety car by taking his second and final stop. Rosberg, crucially, stayed out because Mercedes doubted the tyres would last if the car stopped earlier than planned.
Rosberg’s race was further compromised when rubber debris picked up by the front wing induced understeer and exacerbated tyre wear. The mid-field was still bunched (thanks to the safety car) when Rosberg finally came in and then rejoined in heavy traffic. Fourth place was the final result.
If Alonso was one candidate for “Driver of the Day”, then another had to be Kimi Raikkonen as he came through from 13th on the grid to finish third. The adrenalin generated by this charge through the field (linked to an excellent pit stop strategy) helped relieve the Lotus driver of back pain, a handicap you wouldn’t want on a track such as this on a hot, humid evening.
“It was a long race,” said Vettel. “I couldn’t believe it lasted so long (two hours). I saw 10 laps to go and couldn’t believe it. Then eight laps. It took forever. Fortunately, my car was amazing to drive. Absolutely amazing.”
Some critics will tell you that’s why Vettel is winning races and there was, once again, a spate of unpleasant booing from the crowd as he stood on the podium.
“The booing is ridiculous,” said Lauda. “These people don’t understand what the guy is doing or what the sport is all about. The job he did today was perfection. Simple.”
That was certainly how it appeared as Vettel opened a 60-point lead in the championship with six races to go.