Singapore, September 21, 2014 – Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton made the most of a three-stop strategy to win in Singapore and claim the lead of the world championship. He did three opening stints on the supersoft tyre before completing the race, which ran to the two-hour time limit rather than the scheduled 61 laps.
However, he was closely challenged by Red Bull’s reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel, who ran a two-stop strategy from fourth on the grid. Vettel did two opening stints on the supersoft and then a final stint on the soft at the end of the grand prix, when the car was at its lightest on low fuel. His team-mate Daniel Ricciardo followed the same strategy to finish third in front of the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso.
This allowed Vettel to claim the lead in the closing stages of the race, illustrating perfectly how tyre strategy can make a crucial difference. With a time gap of around two seconds between the compounds, all the drivers started on the faster supersoft. How they used the tyres after that proved crucial, providing the key to the strategy.
Singapore kept up its 100% safety car record following contact between two competitors halfway through the race. Alonso and McLaren driver Jenson Button took the opportunity of the seven-lap safety car period to pit for soft tyres. Both Red Bull and Williams drivers had already pitted for soft tyres before the safety car, meaning that their options were open after running both compounds in the first half of the race.
After the safety car came in, Hamilton needed to extend his lead to around 25 seconds: the time needed to get in and out of the pits.
And so the Mercedes driver re-emerged in second place after his final stop on lap 52, and used his pace advantage to take the lead back from Vettel shortly afterwards.
Lewis Hamilton Winner -It was great to come here after winning in Monza and start the final leg of the season with such a competitive car. It would have been a really hardcore race if Nico had been at the front, as we clearly had the pace. It was all running pretty comfortably until the Safety Car came out, which gave me some problems. I was driving hard to build the gap but then the tyres started dropping off and I wasn’t sure what to do – keep pushing or back off to look after them. So we pitted straight away and I came out behind Seb. But I knew they were on a two-stop strategy and that his tyres were old. I went for it down the back straight – the gap was pretty small and maybe I could have chosen another point on the circuit. But I luckily squeezed through and made it stick. Of course, it’s not an ideal result with Nico retiring, so that shows we still have work to do to get on top of reliability. But it’s been a great job from the team at everyone at the factories to make this mega car. Now we need to keep pushing hard for Japan in two weeks’ time.
Sebastian Vettel- 2nd, Start Position: 4th“It’s a circuit I like here, the atmosphere‘s great and it’s a tough event. I had a good start and got past Daniel and had a decent race. We played a bit with strategy after we got undercut by Alonso, the safety car came at the worst time for us but we made the tyres work at the end which was tough. There was no point fighting Lewis at the end, he was on fresh tyres and I had to manage mine to the end as they were pretty old by then; that was the focus. It was nice to get the cold champagne on the podium.”Daniel Ricciardo – 3rd, Start Position: 3rd“We were really close to the Mercedes in qualifying and we expected the race pace to be a bit faster today to be honest. We weren’t quick enough in the first stint and we had a few other issues going on, with brakes and some power issues that were coming and going, but in terms of points we still got a good handful to take away from here. It actually feels a bit like a home race here. Singapore to Perth is like Melbourne to Perth, so for West Australians it’s not too far. Suzuka is in two weeks and that’s another track we can be optimistic for, so I’m looking forward to that. All in all it was a solid weekend.”
