Sebastian Vettel sparkles on streets of Singapore

Sebastian Vettel has retaken second place in the Formula 1 World Championship by scoring his second victory of the season in Singapore.

The German shadowed pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton for the first 23 laps before the McLaren driver pulled into retirement with gearbox issues.

Jenson Button took up the fight in Hamilton’s absence to eventually take second place, albeit some 8.9s adrift of the Red Bull.

Fernando Alonso minimised the damage to his points lead with third, while Paul di Resta took a career best fourth for Force India.

Nico Rosberg, Kimi Raikkonen, Romain Grosjean, Felipe Massa, Daniel Ricciardo and Mark Webber rounded out the points finishers.

Pastor Maldonado joined his fellow front-row starter on the sidelines when his hydraulics gave up the ghost just past the halfway mark.

The Venezuelan had earlier lost out to Vettel and Button in the first sequence of corners to run fourth before Hamilton’s demise.

The event ran to its two hour time limit after a pair of mid-race Safety Car interventions slowed progress.

The first was called to retrieve Narain Karthikeyan’s crashed HRT, while brake problems saw Michael Schumacher slam into the back of Jean-Eric Vergne shortly after racing resumed, necessitating the second full-course yellow.

Race strategy proved relatively straight forward despite the interruptions, with the top seven finishers each completing two-stops.

An opening lap puncture ensured Felipe Massa three-stopped his way to eighth, while Webber elected to make a third trip to the lane under the second Safety Car, dropping the Australia from fifth to a low of 15th.

Webber ended the race on the tail of his countryman Ricciardo, who scored his third points finish of the season – his second in three races.

Although outside the points, 12th for Timo Glock ensured a best-ever result for Marussia, moving the Russian-owned team passed Caterham in the battle for 10th on the Constructors’ Championship table.

Glock received two positions late in the going when Nico Hulkenberg clashed with Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi on consecutive laps, eventually forcing the German and the Japanese to the pitlane.

Alonso now leads Vettel by 29 points with six races remaining, while Raikkonen also moves past the now fourth placed Hamilton.

See below for the full race result

See below for the updated championship standings