F1: Ten Glorious Years of Singapore Grand Prix

#9 2017: Vettel's Costly Squeeze

The Costly Squeeze

After qualifying, Lewis Hamilton said, he required a miracle to win at Singapore’s Marina Bay circuit, and on race day, within few seconds of the lights going out, his main championship rival Sebastian Vettel was eliminated.

Lewis Hamilton, who saw the race more of damage limitations, had his championship lead extended to 28 points, at the end of the race, which was called off after two hours and 58 laps.

For the first time in the hybrid era, Ferrari was challenging Mercedes, particularly in circuits that favored high downforce. Having already won at Monaco and Hungary, two circuits that reward cars with high downforce, Ferrari started favorites.

At cue, Sebastian Vettel took the pole from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen on a frantic Saturday night. On Sunday night though, torrential rain made the track slippering, and the cars started on inters, some on full wets.

When lights went out, Vettel started from pole and moved across to his left to squeeze Max Verstappen, not sighting the fast-starting teammate, Kimi Raikkonen from fourth place on the grid.

The contact resulted in Max Verstappen collecting Raikkonen, and an innocent Alonso who nicely claimed from eight position into the barriers at turn one. Between turns two and three, Vettel too had to retire, as his car spun off because of coolants leaking from his car.

The safety car was deployed to move the crashed cars, and when the race restarted, Lewis Hamilton pulled ahead of Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, who was nursing a gearbox issue and comfortably dictated the race.

Two additional safety car periods could not stop him on a night, the racing gods were smiling at him.

Behind Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo, Bottas finished third, Carlos Sainz took a famous fourth place for Toro Rosso, the last race before he moved on to Renault, Sergio Perez secured fifth place for Force India, Jolyon Palmer finished sixth, ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne, Lance Stroll, Grosjean, and Esteban Ocon.

The 2017 race was one of the championship defining moments, and 2018 could well be another.