Lewis Hamilton won the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday in dominant fashion to increase his Formula One championship lead over Sebastian Vettel to 40 points with just six races remaining.
The Mercedes driver led from pole to chequered flag, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen more than eight seconds behind and Ferrari’s Vettel a distant third.
Here, we look at the key takeaways from Singapore.
Happy Hamilton
The Briton produced a stellar performance to secure his fourth win in Singapore.
He pushed hard, stayed composed and drove solidly around Marina Bay Street Circuit, when the easy option could have been to sit back and not to take risks.
The 33-year-old controlled the race from pole and didn’t encounter any difficulty as he held off a determined Verstappen and Vettel.
Hamilton now has a seventh win this season – and the result in Singapore only strengthens his grip on a fifth world title even more.
Top marks to the Mercedes team for another flawless strategy.
It looks over for Vettel
The race was always going to be a war of tyre management. It would come down to the team and driver with the best strategy and if they could utilise the tyres the most around the sweeping Asian street circuit.
Unfortunately, Ferrari failed in their strategy calls again, by opting for the German to pit on ultra soft tyres on lap 15. He came out of the pits in P5, got held up behind Sergio Perez for a lap and then Verstappen outsmarted him from the pits on lap 21.
He didn’t seem to have pace to challenge Hamilton either on a poor tyre and struggled in the final laps when he fell a staggering 23 seconds behind second-place Verstappen.
With 40 points separating him from Hamilton in the drivers standings, it looks like his chances of a fifth world title are all but over.
Coupled with some poor team strategy and his own personal errors this season, the 31-year-old has simply buckled under the pressure of his own ambitions.
Misery for Ocon
A disappointing weekend for the 21-year-old.
With uncertainty over his F1 seat next season, a formidable finish would have put some gloss on a difficult few weeks for the talented Frenchman. But he crashed out on the first lap after a shunt from his teammate Perez.
It’s the third time this season that he has retired on the first lap, adding to previous woes in Azerbaijan and France.
The Mercedes-contracted driver is clearly one of the most gifted performers on the grid, and if he is unable to secure a seat for 2019, then expect him to return to paddock in 2020.
He is too good to be left out of the sport, but unfortunately results and internal politics have gone against him this season.
Valiant Verstappen
It was a sensational performance from Verstappen to collect his fifth podium of the season.
Although he would have been happier to win the race, the confidence he showed to nip ahead of Vettel after a pitstop and then attack Hamilton late in the race was remarkable.
With Hamilton’s tyres losing some fizz with 20 laps remaining, Verstappen closed the gap to 1.5 seconds at one point, but that was as close as he could get.
Still, it was a commendable second place for the 21-year-old, who is slowly looking back to his best after recent disappointments in Hungary and Silverstone.
His teammate Daniel Ricciardo could only manage to finish sixth.
Resurgent Renault
The Renault duo of Carlos Sainz and Nico Hulkenberg shone in Singapore to finish eighth and 10th respectively – their sixth top-10 finish this season.
Sainz, in particular, had a solid race under the radar, leapfrogging his teammate Hulkenberg early in the race, before rising three more places to eighth.
Their five points collected in Singapore means Renault are now fourth in the constructors’ championship – 10 points ahead of Haas and 162 behind Red Bull.
