Singapore Grand Prix (2012) RESULT

With a very strong Lewis Hamilton on pole in the 2012 Singapore Grand Prix it looks like McLaren are in a dominant position. But are they?

McLaren has been strong in the last few races, with Hamilton taking three poles in four and Button winning from lights to flag in Spa, followed by what should have been a second place behind Hamilton at Monza if his car had made it to the end of the race.

But in Singapore Hamilton looked set to run away, with Button behind to keep fifth on the grid Alonso in check. And it sort of worked that way.

Hamilton took the lead from the start and looked comfortable, at least until lap 23 when his gearbox gave up the ghost, leaving the lead to Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull with Jenson Button tucked in behind and Williams’s Pastor Maldonado and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso in their wake.

But that only lasted for ten laps before Narain Karthikeyan bent his HRT which brought out the safety car. Moldanado, oddly, jumped in to the pits for a seconds tyre change in four laps and came out down the pack before dropping out with a hydraulics problem.

The race restarted on lap 39, but only until Schumacher took a dive in to the back of Jean-Eric Vergne’s Torro Rosso causing a second safety car until lap 42 by which time it was clear the two hour race limit would be reached before all 61 laps were completed.

But the final sector of the race saw Vettel extending his lead over Button in second place by the time the chequered flag was waved and Fernando Alonso nursing his degrading tyres in for another point-gathering third place.

Britain’s Paul dio Resta had a great race for a fourth in the Force India with Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes in fifth, Kimi Raikkonen in the Lotus in sixth, Grosjean’s Lotus in seventh followed by Massa in the Ferrari in eighth, Ricciardo in the Torro Rosso in ninth and Mark Webber claiming the last points place in the Red Bull in tenth.

The Singapore Grand Prix leaves Fernando Alonso 29 points ahead of Sebastian Vettel in second place and 45 ahead of third place Kimi Raikkonen. Lewis Hamilton is 52 points adrift, Mark Webber 61 behind and Jenson Button has little hope left of another championship with 75 points separating him from Alonso.

By Cars UK