(Pirelli Motorsport Media)
Mercedes Lewis Hamilton took a light's to flag victory under the lights at the Singapore night race today finishing the race just ahead of Infiniti Red Bull Racing's reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel and his team mate Daniel Ricciardo. The 2008 world champion put his three stop strategy to great use taking his seventh win of the season and taking a three point lead in the championship over Nico Rosberg to the Japanese Grand Prix.
The 2008 world champion made his first stop on lap 13 trading in his Super Soft used rubber for a set set of used Super Soft tyre's before stopping again for another set of Super Soft used tyre's on lap 26 while making his third and final stop for a new set of the Soft tyre on lap 52.
The Infiniti Red Bull Racing duo opted for a two stop strategy. Sebastian Vettel led a Grand Prix for the first time this season making his first stop of the race on lap 12 for a set of used Super Soft tyre's while stopping once again on lap 25 for a brand new set of Soft tyre's. Red Bull team mate Daniel Ricciardo started the race on a used set of Super Soft tyre's before making his first stop on lap 12 for another used set of Super Soft rubber while stopping two laps later then Vettel on lap 27 for a new set of Soft tyre's.
Sahara Force India F1 Team's Sergio Perez made a four stop strategy work having started the race from 15th place to come through the field and finish the race in 7th place. The reason behind the four stops was because the Mexican had the wrong set of tyre's fitted on lap 29 so was back in the pits on lap 30 for a set of New Soft tyre's.
Speaking about today's race Pirelli Motorsport boss Paul Hembery stated:
'Again we saw another very tense and exciting race where different tyre strategies formed a crucial part of the outcome. In the closing stages of the grand prix we had Hamilton on newer soft tyres behind Vettel on older soft tyres, meaning he had to overtake to seal the race victory.
Before then, we had the situation where Hamilton, on the faster supersoft tyre, had to build up a crucial half-minute or so gap after the safety car to give him enough time to get in and out of the pits and change to the soft tyre. So, as we have seen before, despite the fact that there were different strategies at work, it was an extremely close finish.'
© Ben Johnston 2014
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