Sebastian Vettel blazes to another victory

Sebastian Vettel recorded another punishing win as he edges closer to a fourth straight F1 title by romping away with the Singapore Grand Prix.

Vettel extended his amazing run which started mid-season to five wins from the last seven races. It was his third straight win under lights at the spectacular Marina Bay circuit.

Even though he had a blistering start, Fernando Alonso scored an unlikely second place while Kimi Raikkonen was even more of a surprise to claim third and fight off an agonising back injury.

It was yet another mind-numbing performance from Vettel who had opened up an astonishing 36s lead when he headed to the pits on lap 17 of the 61-lap grand prix.

Vettel was in a race of his own eventually winning by 32.627s.

There was a glimmer of hope that some sort of contest may develop when a safety car streamed onto the circuit just short of mid-race.

Daniel Ricciardo locked up the left front of his Toro Rosso, crashing heavily into the wall after admitting to pushing too hard.

The Aussie’s accident neutralised the field, bringing Vettel back into the clutches of Nico Rosberg after he squeezed out a 13s lead following the opening round of pit stops.

On the restart Vettel cleared out from Rosberg and Mark Webber and it quickly became apparent there needed to be more than a safety car intervention to lasso the German.

Webber managed to jump Rosberg during their second round of stops before Vettel pitted for the super softs on lap 45.

Romain Grosjean’s race was mired with an air consumption problem when he was summoned into the pits to fix the problem from sixth place eventually rejoining last of the 21 remaining runners.

Lotus soon after decided to call Grosjean back into the pits and retire with just over 20 laps of the race remaining.

There was a lift in tempo with just over 10 laps remaining when Webber, Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton who were in eighth, ninth and 10th eventually gobbled up Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez.

Up the road Vettel led by a street over Alonso, Jenson Button, Raikkonen, Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg who were all rolling the dice the going to the end without another stop.

Webber, Rosberg and Hamilton were all setting up for a grandstand finish on fresh rubber.

Cruelly though Webber was told to nurse his revs after developing an engine problem with plunging water pressure but not before he had charged into fourth.

The Australian then suffered the indignity of the engine letting go on the last lap as his mate Alonso stopped to give him lift back to the pits Nigel Mansell style.

Rosberg managed to fightback to claim fourth after promising so much by beating Vettel to the first corner before running wide on the exit of the opening lap and settling into second.

Hamilton was fifth ahead of Felipe Massa, the McLaren pair of Button and Perez were next with Hulkenberg ninth and Adrian Sutil 10th.

See below for full result

Drivers standings