Lewis Hamilton has won an incident-packed Singapore Grand Prix and taken a 28-point lead in the driver’s championship.
Shortly before the race began, rain started to fall at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, making the event the first ever F1 race to be held at night in the rain.
Heading into the first corner, Kimi Raikkonen rocketed off the line from fourth position and attempted to overtake Max Verstappen on the inside. However, Sebastian Vettel, who was to the right of Verstappen, began to close the door on the Dutchman, sandwiching Verstappen between the pair of Ferraris. Verstappen and Raikkonen soon made contact, sending the Flying Finn spinning down the straight and slamming into the side of Verstappen at the first corner. Vettel then span out in the tricky conditions just moments later, bursting one of his radiators and forcing him to retire.
With the first three on the grid retiring within the first two corners, Hamilton was able to inherit first place after starting the race in fifth and overtaking Daniel Ricciardo off the line.
The rain soon stopped and the track started to dry out, leaving Hamilton and Ricciardo to battle it out for the win. However, a gearbox issue for the Australian hampered his chances and he was left to follow the championship leader for the entirety of the race.
Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas finished third, Carlos Sainz claimed a career-high fourth, Sergio Perez finished fifth and Jolyon Palmer secured sixth, just a day after learning he’ll lose his Renault drive at the end of the season.
Speaking about his good fortune and incident-free drive, Hamilton said he was very pleased with the result.
“I came here today really thinking it was about damage limitation, and we’ve come out ahead. So I’m very grateful. To come to a track that was potentially our weakest circuit, and come away with a win like this and those points, it’s really such a fortunate scenario… so I definitely have a skip in my step.”
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