Del Amitri had the right idea. If every third car was a cab, there might be a bit of overtaking, though the pit stops for fuel, tyres and a newspaper might not be that compelling.
Then again, if it’s a choice between that and the Singapore Grand Prix, it might be worth taking the Daily Star and 20 quid’s worth of diesel. Races all have their own story, and each story has a beginning, middle and end, so let’s treat this one in the same way.
The Beginning
Lewis Hamilton made an outrageously good getaway from pole position, leading unchallenged into the first chicane from Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel. Further back, Jenson Button managed both to fend off Kimi Raikkonen and to overtake Kazuki Nakajima, both keys to a productive night.
Mark Webber, Fernando Alonso and Timo Glock engaged in a triangular scrap for P4 lasting half a lap, the Australian taking the place by means of an illegal move way off to the outside of the defined racetrack at turn 7. It was the kind of move Kimi wasn’t penalised for at Spa, but Webbo would not be so lucky, ordered to give up the place he’d gained to Alonso. To do that he had to let Glock past too, the German sat awkwardly between the two having muscled the Spaniard aside at turn 8.
After the first lap Hamilton led Rosberg, Vettel, Webber, Glock and Alonso. Rubens Barrichello was in behind them, with title rival Button 10th behind Robert Kubica and Heikki Kovalainen. It stayed that way for, oooh, ages.
The Middle
The first three comfortably had the legs on everyone else, Hamilton usually the quicker of the trio but not by much, particularly during a brief episode that required him to disable his KERS. Further back, Romain Grosjean’s brakes made it around the first 10 miles before giving up, the Frenchman becoming the first retirement.
Vettel began the pit sequence for the main contenders on lap 17, his stop running in butter-smooth fashion until a late release from his stall cost him a few tenths. A lap later Rosberg was in for faultless service from the Williams crew, service which went to waste when Nico lost control exiting the pit lane. Slithering across the kerbs on the inside of turn 1, Nico was on the racetrack before he’d even reached the white line separating pit lane from racing surface, a line drivers must not cross. While he gained no advantage from it, rules are rules, and a drive-through penalty was to ruin his evening.
Nick Heidfeld’s race was even worse. Cast to the back of the grid for a bizarre rules infringement – BMW found that their car was lighter than they expected when weighed post-qualifying, this being because a ballast weight was missing, and so the car would have finished underweight had it been left to run normally – Quick Nick had caught the back of a queue headed by Jaime Alguersuari. The Toro Rosso rookie had a remarkable first lap but was quite some way off the pace thereafter, to the irritation of Adrian Sutil, who spun on lap 21 after a half-hearted passing attempt went wrong. In attempting to recover, Sutil gave the throttle a kicking and buried his car into the right-rear corner of the innocent Heidfeld, who was passing by and no more. So ended a remarkable run of race finishes, with Nick’s retirement being his first in 42 races stretching back to June 2007.
The safety car came out while the debris was cleared. This threatened to ruin the races of those like Button, who had yet to pit and were planning to run for some laps before doing so but now had no choice but to fuel up.
When we got going again, everything was the same except for one of the Germans in the top trio, Rosberg’s penalty seeing him replaced by the remarkable Glock, whose Toyota was suddenly working on a street circuit at last and running marginally quicker than the leaders. One of those leaders, Vettel, would remove himself from contention by speeding in the pit lane on lap 37, leaving Hamilton unchallenged at the front from Glock and good gracious, Alonso’s Renault, Fernando up there this year through his own brilliance and nothing more.
The End
Once everyone had pitted for the final time, Hamilton had a comfortable lead from Glock, who was well clear of Alonso. Vettel had salvaged 4th, which kept him in title contention mathematically though not realistically, with Button crucially jumping Barrichello during the second stops to hold 5th after the Brazilian had difficulty engaging gears.
With no racing to worry about, the drivers were free to concern themselves with brakes, Webber’s having already pitched him into high-speed retirement 15 laps from home. The Red Bull stable might perhaps have been a little too aggressive with their cooling solutions, with Vettel in a little trouble too while the Toro Rosso of Alguersuari was forced to stop in the pits while it was still capable of doing so. Brawn weren’t in much better shape, first Rubens and then Jenson struggling. Button, with 10 seconds back to his teammate, backed off. Rubens didn’t, and anyone watching the FIA’s live timing online as the race progressed would have seen him produce two of his quickest laps of the day on the final couple of tours. In the end he’d fall a couple of seconds short of catching Jenson, a further point behind him in the title chase, and another step further away from succeeding in his improbable pursuit of the Englishman.
At the front, Hamilton was dominant. Another victory to go with his win in Hungary, and some compensation for opportunities lost in Valencia and Monza. The reigning champion might not have had the technical tools to defend his crown, but today served as another reminder that the physical ones remain as sharp as ever. An impressive drive would have been still better had he needed to fight for the win on-track, but even when his pursuers were close there was no danger of that happening. Take the crashes out of this Singapore Grand Prix, and the one before it too, and see that nothing ever happens. Nothing happens at all.
