And here’s Giles Richards’s race report:
Six race to go and Nico Rosberg leads the championship by eight points. Let’s hope it goes to the wire. That’s all from me, thanks for reading.
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Nico Rosberg: “It’s been awesome weekend for me. Great start. We knew it was going to tight at the end but we managed to hold on. The whole car was on the edge, it always is hear in Singapore.”
Daniel Ricciardo: “We’ve come very close this year on numerous occasions. I’m not going to stand up here and be disappointed, we gave it a shot. It was close, as soon as we did the pitstop we thought Nico was going to come in. At least we made it exciting.”
Lewis Hamilton: “Congratulations to Nico, he drove fantastically well all weekend. It’s been a tricky weekend for me but I’m glad to get points for my team. Once I did my third stop my brakes were under control. I’m still in the fight, there’s still a long way to, and I’m going to give it everything I’ve got it.”
Rosberg lifts the trophy as Ricciardo applauds and Hamilton... adjusts his cap. Classy. He’s not too interested in spraying champagne. Martin Brundle takes his place to pose the questions.
Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Rosberg have a good chinwag after the race while Lewis Hamilton drifts around moodily. He takes his place on his 99th F1 podium a little reluctantly as Rosberg leaps on to the top spot for the cameras. The German national anthem rings out.
Here is Red Bull’s Christian Horner: “Mercedes made their bed by leaving Nico out there. It was worth a go, we had nothing to lose but to give it a go. The guys in the UK were telling us we were going to be around him [Rosberg] with a couple of laps to go but it looks like they [Mercedes] left enough back for the final laps.”
Nico Rosberg is all smiles. He goes for a crowd surf with the Mercedes mechanics.
Mercedes’ Niki Lauda: “Unbelievable race. Nico did really well to defend, Lewis fought to the end.” On Rosberg taking the championship lead: “This is the way things change, he did a good job today, I have to say.”
Singapore GP top 10
1 Rosberg
2 Ricciardo
3 Hamilton
4 Raikkonen
5 Vettel
6 Verstappen
7 Alonso
8 Perez
9 Kvyat
10 Magnussen
A fine fifth-place finish for Vettel, having started at the back of the grid.
Nico Rosberg wins the Singapore Grand Prix!
Nico Rosberg holds off the late challenge of Daniel Ricciardo to win his first Singapore Grand Prix and take an eight-point lead in the drivers’ championship. Fireworks fly around Marina Bay as Lewis Hamilton finishes third, with Raikkonen fourth.
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Final lap Rosberg begins the final lap with a 1.8sec advantage from Ricciardo. Is there a late twist?
Lap 60/61 Ricciardo has put in a brilliant effort to close the gap but Rosberg is digging in and, with two laps to go, looks like clinging on to the race win. Hamilton remains third, with Raikkonen fourth.
Lap 59/61 Ricciardo’s charge has been slowed by back-markers, and the gap remains at 4sec. Rosberg has no more cars to lap and has clear road to the end.
Lap 58/61 Three laps remain and Rosberg continues to cling on to the lead, with Ricciardo 5sec back. Hamilton in third is also under pressure from Raikkonen. The Mercedes drivers are normally on the attack but both are going to have to show their defensive skills in these final laps.
Lap 56/61 Wow, Ricciardo has ripped into Rosberg’s lead. It’s down to only five seconds. He will certainly catch the Mercedes, the only question is whether the Red Bull can find a way to overtake in the final laps.
FASTEST SECTORS: RIC driving like a man possessed as he chases down ROS 👊 #SingaporeGP 🇸🇬 pic.twitter.com/4GQ0ffO4bm
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 18, 2016
Lap 54/61 Further back, Verstappen is on the tail of Alonso. He looks down the inside at Turn 7 and takes 6th place with ease.
Lap 53/61 The irony of this situation that Rosberg finds himself in is that Mercedes started all this by pitting Hamilton, forcing Ferrari and Red Bull to react and thus putting pressure on the leader. Ricciardo is absolutely flying, he knows the race win is there to grab. He’s only 10sec behind Rosberg now and is surely going to reel the Mercedes in.
Lap 52/61 Rosberg’s lead has fallen to 16sec already – 11 laps for Ricciardo to hunt down the leader on the streets of Singapore. Behind them, Hamilton remains a couple of seconds clear of Raikkonen.
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Lap 51/61 What was rumbling towards quite a stale finish in Singapore has suddenly transformed into a fascinating one, essentially because of Lewis Hamilton’s pitstop which caused a chain reaction of stops. Ricciardo sets the new fastest lap of the race and is rapidly closing the gap to the leader, Rosberg, who is less than 20sec up the road. Red Bull tell Ricciardo over radio that he would catch Rosberg with four laps to go, at current pace.
Lap 49/61 “Push hard now Nico,” Mercedes tell Rosberg. The mechanics come out as if ready for a pitstop but there is a change of heart and Rosberg stays out on track. They must feel that, despite Ricciardo’s quicker pace since his pit, Rosberg’s lead of 25sec is enough to go until the end.
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Lap 48/61 Perhaps having seen what’s happened behind them between Hamilton and Raikkonen, Red Bull decide to pit Ricciardo and put pressure on Rosberg. How will the race leader respond?
Lap 47/61 Raikkonen puts on a new set of super-soft tyres (ultra is a greater measure of soft than super, for the uninitiated). He rolls back out just behind Hamilton in fourth! The undercut has worked, or perhaps we should say that Raikkonen’s defensive pit has failed.
Lap 46/61 Lewis Hamilton makes his ‘plan B’ third stop, and returns 27 seconds behind Raikkonen – who reacts with a pitstop of his own.
Or is it a sabbatical?
Lap 45/61 Oh dear. Jenson Button’s black McLaren crawls into the pits and retires from the race.
Lap 44/61 Hamilton’s gap behind Raikkonen, third, is now down to only 2.2sec. Hamilton is still likely to put again, however. His team-mate Nico Rosberg is having his lead slowly eroded, with Ricciardo now 3.9sec back.
Lap 42/61 Hamilton has quickly reduced the gap to Raikkonen to within three seconds. Further back, Vettel pits to put on the ultra-soft tyres and returns just in front of Alonso, meaning Verstappen is 5th, Vettel 6th and Alonso 7th.
Lap 41/61 Hamilton reacts instantly, setting a new fastest lap running nearly two seconds quicker than Rosberg’s latest run.
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Lap 40/61 “OK Lewis, we’re going to switch to plan B,” say Mercedes. He is currently fourth and making very few inroads on Raikkonen and Ricciardo up ahead. Might they switch to a three-stop here?
Lap 39/61 Max Verstappen continues his charge back into the mix, swinging around Magnussen on the pit straight to take 6th.
Lap 38/61 Massa completes an easy pass of Gutierrez to move up into 11th. Bad news for Bottas, who is coming in to retire his Williams from the race.
Lap 36/61 Hamilton slips on the yellow-rimmed soft tyres and he’s back out on the circuit six seconds behind Raikkonen. The top four of Rosberg, Ricciardo (+5.3), Raikkonen (+11.9) and Hamilton (+17.8) should now run to the end of the race.
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Lap 35/61 Chaos in the pitlane. Bottas has a problem with his seatbelt of all things, and has a mechanic jumping into the car to do it up like a conscientious parent. Meanwhile Rosberg has stopped too and rejoins with the soft tyres, still ahead of Ricciardo. Here comes Hamilton...
Lap 34/61 Raikkonen dives down the inside as Hamilton locks up, and makes the pass stick to take third! An already grumpy Hamilton is not going to be too happy.
Lap 32/61 Sebastian Vettel sets the fastest lap of the race with a 1min 49.857sec – he is up to eighth and isn’t done yet. Verstappen gets past Perez who is struggling with tyres, and the Red Bull is back up to 10th, having started 4th but been affected by the Hulkenberg incident on the opening lap.
Top 10
1 Rosberg
2 Ricciardo
3 Hamilton
4 Raikkonen
5 Alonso
6 Kvyat
7 Magnussen
8 Vettel
9 Gutierrez
10 Perez
Lap 30/61 At the halfway point Nico Rosberg is perfectly poised to take up the lead in the drivers’ championship from Lewis Hamilton, who is struggling to keep hold of 3rd with Raikkonen all over his rear wing. Ricciardo is between the two Mercedes, four seconds back from Rosberg and nine seconds clear of Hamilton.
Lap 29/61 Vettel swings past Gutierrez and Perez in one fell swoop and the Ferrari driver is up to 10th now, having started at the back of the grid.
Andrew Benton emails a seismic question: “What ever happened to the driver with massive promise that was Jensen Button 15 years ago? Seems he’s just making up the numbers now. What went wrong?” Well he did fulfil that promise in winning a world championship, in fairness. In recent years, in a nutshell, McLaren-Honda have been a disaster that Button and Fernando Alonso have both fallen victim to. Today however Alonso is flying in fifth. Button? 18th.
Lap 27/61 Raikkonen pops the rear wing open and DRS’s his way towards the back of Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes. He is now within half a second of the Briton.
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Lap 26/61 Vettel pits and returns side by side with Nasr, who decides against a fight with the four-time world champion and cedes 13th position.
Lap 25/61 Raikkonen has really closed on Hamilton in third, cutting the gap to within a second – which will give him the chance to use DRS and attempt a pass.
Lap 23/61 Remarkably Kvyat still hasn’t let Verstappen through. This battle must be taking its toll on the Dutch driver’s tyres. At Turn 22 a piece of debris has fallen off the back of a Williams, I believe, and it’s right on the racing line. Double yellow flags in the final sector.
Lap 22/61 Out in front Rosberg is still five seconds clear of Ricciardo, with Hamilton a further six seconds back from the Red Bull. Raikkonen, in fourth, is actually lapping quicker than all three drivers ahead of him.
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Lap 21/61 Time and again Verstappen spies a gap and attacks, but Kvyat is desperate to keep the inevitable pass at bay as long as possible. He dives down the inside but Kvyat shuts the door again!
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Lap 20/61 Kvyat and Verstappen go wheel to wheel! They have history of course, Verstappen having taken the Russian’s Red Bull seat. Kvyat digs in and will not let Verstappen get around his outside, stubbornly fighting to keep 8th position.
Lap 18/61 Raikkonen’s lead doesn’t last long as he comes in to pit. He returns behind Hamilton – order restored.
Lap 17/61 Hamilton isn’t too happy. “Come on guys, I needed a strategy that could get me past.” I don’t think he wanted the slower soft tyre on his Mercedes. Rosberg pits – and it’s a slow one, losing a couple of seconds. He returns on the soft tyres too but he has enough time in hand to remain ahead of Ricciardo. Raikkonen, yet to pit, leads the race.
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Lap 15/61 Alonso is the latest to pit and he puts on a fresh set of supersoft tyres. Next comes Ricciardo, followed by Hamilton. They return fourth and fifth respectively, behind Raikkonen and Massa. Rosberg will surely be in very soon.
Lap 14/61 Verstappen pits for a new set of super soft tyres. He rejoins just behind Estaban Ocon in 15th, not an ideal result – but he quickly rips around the Manor car at the first opportunity. “Can you keep me up to date please, I have no clue what’s going on,” says Lewis Hamilton on radio.
Lap 13/61 Vettel has done well having started at the back of the grid. He has weaved his way to 13th which is no mean feat on this circuit but he is now struggling to find a route around Massa. Ocon has a time penalty and will serve that when he next pits.
Top 10
1 Rosberg
2 Ricciardo
3 Hamilton
4 Raikkonen
5 Alonso
6 Kvyat
7 Verstappen
8 Massa
9 Magnussen
10 Gutierrez
Nico Hulkenberg on the incident at the start that ended his race: “I think Carlos [Sainz] didn’t go for any gap, but he had to turn around Max [Verstappen] who didn’t get a good start. I had my best start of the season and now I’m paying the price. It’s quite frustrating.”
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Lap 11/61 Hamilton is told to “really get on top of these front brakes.” He is a couple of seconds back from Ricciardo, who is four seconds behind the race leader, Rosberg.
Lap 9/61 There are several steward investigations going on right now, including one looking into an unsafe release by Williams as Bottas almost collided with Vettel. Mark Blundell is this weekend’s driver representative official and he’s going to be busy. Sainz does now pit and returns in 19th, although Toro Rosso have wisely taken the chance to change tyres too.
Lap 7/61 Sainz is showing some gumption and has not yet pitted, despite the aforementioned flag. Up front, Nico Rosberg burns through the fastest lap of the race and he is looking very comfortable in these early stages.
Lap 6/61 Sainz has been shown the black and orange flag, meaning ‘please get yourself to the pits’. There is something on his bodywork flapping around and it needs sorting. This is going to allow Verstappen to take up 7th behind Kvyat, the man whose Red Bull place he nabbed.
Lap 5/61 Hamilton has lost a second already to Ricciardo in front of him, and Raikkonen is all up in his mirrors.
Lap 3/61 “I just got hit by the Toro Rosso, I was sandwiched between them,” was Hulkenberg’s analysis of his exit. Bottas meanwhile suffered a puncture and that has resulted in sending him to the back, ahead only of Jenson Button who had to change his McLaren’s nose.
Lap 2/61 Alonso is the one to really benefit from the chaos, up in fifth right now. The track is clear, the safety car slips into the pitlane and they’re racing.
Lap 1/61 Max Verstappen seems to have been the other loser from that incident on the grid, falling back to 8th. With the safety car out, plenty of drivers are taking the chance to pit – in fact they are being sent down the pitlane to avoid debris on the pit straight.
Lights out!
Rosberg gets off to a flier zipping to the first corner ahead of Ricciardo with Hamilton third. Hulkenberg crashes almost immediately! He gets tagged from behind and spins into the wall. He walks away OK. Safety car coming.
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With Grosjean out that leaves 21 cars to start this Singapore Grand Prix. They pull around the final corner and on to the grid. Rosberg slots into pole on the right-hand side with Daniel Ricciardo to his left and Lewis Hamilton right behind him. Here we go...
Romain Grosjean will not start
Grosjean takes his helmet off and that looks like his day done, before it’s started.
Mechanics scurry from the grid, tyre covers in hand, and the drivers begin their formation lap.
The grid
1 Rosberg (Mercedes) 2 Ricciardo (Red Bull)
3 Hamilton (Mercedes) 4 Verstappen (Red Bull)
5 Raikkonen (Ferrari) 6 Sainz (Toro Rosso)
7 Kvyat (Toro Rosso) 8 Hulkenberg (Force India)
9 Alonso (McLaren) 10 Bottas (Williams)
11 Massa (Williams) 12 Button (McLaren)
13 Gutierrez (Haas) 14 Ericsson (Sauber)
15 Magnussen (Renault) 16 Nasr (Sauber)
17 Perez (Force India) 18 Palmer (Renault)
19 Wehrlein (Manor) 20 Grosjean (Haas) – starts from pits
21 Ocon (Manor) 22 Vettel (Ferrari)
Williams’ no-nonsense head of performance Rob Smedley scoffs at the idea suggested by Martin Brundle that some teams wanted an extra practice session this morning to adjust to the overnight thunderstorm that brought a serious downpour. He doesn’t believe that was the case. It doesn’t matter much now anyway, this race is nearly under way: 61 laps around the streets of Singapore coming right up.
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Romain Grosjean’s weekend has not been going well and it’s just a got a little worse with the news that he will start from the pits.
Jenson Button speaks: “Hopefully our race pace is better than it was on Friday. We’ve made a lot of changes so we will see.”
If you’ve not heard the Singapore national anthem before I’d recommend it. It’s a cheery one. Ten minutes until lights out at Marina Bay.
Max Verstappen gets the Brundle treatment on his trudge towards taking his place for the national anthem. “Long runs will be very positive. I’ve got a good feeling. We’ll see what happens.”
Here’s Paddy Lowe of Mercedes, who is optimistic for his drivers and for an exciting race: “The pole side is grippier, so statistically it’s the better side to be on. This is never an easy circuit, you can see it by the statistics. Nobody’s ever got a one-two here. So much gets thrown at you. It’s such a fatiguing track on the driver and the car, safety cars, stoppages. Anything can happen.”
Martin Brundle of Sky Sports is on the grid, wondering around pestering as he does best. He’s doorstepped a cool and calm Daniel Ricciardo: “I just did one lap to the grid and everything felt like it was working to plan.”
“You’re up for it aren’t ya?” Brundle asks in true Delia Smith style. “Yup,” Ricciardo grins.
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The sparkling lights have Marina Bay all a-shimmer as the cars trundle out of the garage to the grid. There isn’t much prettier than an F1 night race.
Seven races to go, two points in it:
30 MINS TO GO ⏰
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 18, 2016
We've got a title battle on our hands... #SingaporeGP 🇸🇬 #F1NightRace 🌃 pic.twitter.com/28IRdPQ07j
As a bit of pre-race reading I highly recommend this by Giles Richards on what Liberty Media’s takeover has in store for Formula One:
The drivers’ parade is under way as the sun sets in Singapore. McLaren’s new retro upgrade could backfire:
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If you missed yesterday’s qualifying, here’s our man on the ground Giles Richards with all you need to know:
Preamble
Nico Rosberg doesn’t typically go in for hyperbole so his comments after winning pole yesterday are revealing. “It is in my top three laps ever,” he said after taking seven tenths out of his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton who will start third. At a risk of ratcheting up the pre-race excitement, Marina Bay is not a generous circuit for overtaking and Rosberg is in the best place to win his first Singapore GP, and overturn Hamilton’s two-point lead in the drivers’ championship.
Rosberg’s pace clearly stunned Daniel Ricciardo. Red Bull had targeted pole this weekend at a winding circuit that suits them, particularly in the context of Mercedes’ Singapore struggles last year, but the Australian had to settle for second with his team-mate Max Verstappen fourth. “I am pleased enough,” was Ricciardo’s muted response. “The aim was to be on the front row and it is nice to be in front of one of the Mercedes.”
Behind them, Kimi Raikkonen is the lone Ferrari representative near the front after Sebastian Vettel suffered a mechanical failure and will have to weave through the pack. Toro Rosso qualified well with Carlos Sainz sixth and Daniel Kvyat seventh, while Fernando Alonso starts ahead of the two Williams in ninth. Hamilton must ensure that, at a minimum, his troubles off the start this season don’t leave him swallowed up by the chasing pack come Turn 1. He still leads the championship, but it is advantage Rosberg right now.
Lights out: 1pm BST, 8pm local time.
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