2014 Singapore GP: Hamilton wins, Rosberg retires, takes championship lead

Lewis Hamilton won the 2014 Singapore Grand Prix from pole position ahead of the two Red Bull drivers Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo. The decisive moment came late on: after his final pit stop Hamilton rejoined behind Vettel, but passed him just one lap later. With his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg retiring early with an electrical fault, Hamilton left the night race at the Marina Bay Street Circuit as championship leader.

Rosberg's misfortune began before the race had even started. According to team principal Toto Wolff, a wiring loom in the steering column was faulty, and the problem first appeared when the car was fired up in the garage. The team changed the steering wheel first and then the entire steering assembly, but the fault lay in the wiring and remained. The German, who had qualified second, had to start from the pit lane. According to Motor Sport, he was missing almost all of his electrical power, and the gearbox at times shifted up two gears at once.

When Rosberg came in for his first tyre change, the car once again refused to pull away. Mercedes retired the car. The results list the cause of retirement after 13 laps as electrics. Team principal Toto Wolff afterwards lamented the reliability of what was actually a superior car.

With Rosberg's grid position left empty, Hamilton had a clear run and got away first. Behind him, Vettel and Ricciardo went wheel to wheel into the first corner. Fernando Alonso tried it around the outside, braked too late and cut across the run-off area. That initially put him in second place, but he handed the position back to Vettel.

At the front, Hamilton controlled the pace. According to Motor Sport, he was more than five seconds ahead after ten laps and had used less fuel than Vettel after seven laps. His stops on laps 13 and 26 cost him the lead only briefly: on lap 27 Ricciardo led for one lap, after which Hamilton was back in front. At his second stop, according to Motor Sport, the crew also removed rubber debris from the slots in his front wing.

Around mid-race, Adrian Sutil (Sauber) and Sergio Pérez (Force India) collided while battling for position. Pérez's front wing broke and debris was scattered across the track. The Safety Car was deployed and, according to Motor Sport, stayed out until the end of lap 37.

This phase changed the tactics. The Red Bull drivers were already on the harder compound and planned to run to the finish on it. Ferrari brought Alonso and Räikkönen in under the Safety Car for the harder tyres so that they too could go to the end. Hamilton was on the softer supersoft tyres and still had to pit once more to use the mandatory second compound. He therefore had to build a lead big enough to cover the stop. According to Motor Sport, he was around 24 seconds ahead on lap 50, but would have needed about 27. After that his tyres faded.

So Ferrari took a different route with Alonso than Mercedes did with Hamilton, whom the team left out under the Safety Car. Alonso made three stops and finished fourth, directly behind the two Red Bulls.

On lap 52 Hamilton made his final pit stop and took on soft tyres. He rejoined behind Vettel, who briefly led the race on lap 53. On much fresher tyres and with DRS, Hamilton went past the Red Bull through the fast kink at turn six. From there he cruised to his seventh win of the season and the 29th victory of his career. According to grandprix.com, he crossed the line 13.5 seconds ahead of Vettel. Ricciardo finished just behind, and Hamilton also set the fastest lap.

The race ended after 60 laps instead of 61: the Safety Car period had dragged it out so long that the two-hour limit was reached.

Winner of the day, alongside Hamilton, was Jean-Éric Vergne. The Toro Rosso driver climbed from 12th on the grid to sixth, despite receiving time penalties for exceeding track limits, according to Motor Sport. Pérez gained the most places: he started 15th and finished seventh, helped by a late fourth stop for fresh supersoft tyres. Marcus Ericsson (Caterham) also gained seven places, from 22nd to 15th. Felipe Massa scored important points for Williams in fifth. Behind him came Kimi Räikkönen in eighth, Nico Hülkenberg in ninth and Kevin Magnussen (McLaren) in tenth.

Losers included Valtteri Bottas as well as Rosberg. His tyres degraded heavily at the end, and he dropped from eighth on the grid to eleventh, just outside the points.

Retirements at a glance:

• Kamui Kobayashi (Caterham): power unit failure on the formation lap, did not start
• Nico Rosberg (Mercedes): electrics, after 13 laps
• Esteban Gutiérrez (Sauber): electrics, after 17 laps
• Adrian Sutil (Sauber): water pressure, after 40 laps
• Jenson Button (McLaren): total electrical failure according to Motor Sport, after 52 laps

In the drivers' championship, Hamilton moved past Rosberg (238) with 241 points. With five races still to go, the Mercedes duel headed into the final phase wide open. Ricciardo remained third on 181 points. Alonso (133) and Vettel (124) moved up to fourth and fifth, while Bottas (122) dropped to sixth.

In the constructors' standings, Mercedes stayed well clear with 479 points. Red Bull followed with 305, ahead of Williams (187) and Ferrari (178). For Rosberg, the retirement was a bitter setback. Hamilton, by contrast, showed in Singapore how confidently he could make the most of the Silver Arrows that year, even if an additional Safety Car period could have upset his strategy. Next up was the Japanese GP.