Nico Rosberg takes back points lead with win in Singapore
Nico Rosberg dominated Sunday's Singapore GP at the Marina Bay Street Circuit in Singapore, although Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo was chasing him down in the closing laps.
It was Rosberg's eighth win of the season and first at the Singapore circuit. Rosberg has won the last three straight F1 races, all at tracks that he had never won at before. It marked the 22nd win of his career in his 200th start.
Additionally, Rosberg has now taken the points lead back from his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton, who finished in third place. Rosberg now has an eight-point lead heading into the Malaysian GP in two weeks time.
Rosberg led the field away for the first of 61 laps at the start of Sunday's race, which was held under the lights.
However, the cars were slowed almost immediately as the Safety Car was deployed on Lap 1. Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen had spun his wheels at the start, causing a couple of cars to pull up alongside him heading into the first turn. Things got crowded and Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz and Force India's Nico Hulkenberg collided, with the latter coming off worse as his car spun into the wall. Williams driver Valtteri Bottas and McLaren driver Jenson Button also sustained damage and both ultimately failed to finish the race.
The Safety Car came in at the end of Lap 2, which caught a track marshal off guard. Fortunately, the marshal was just able to make his way off the track before the cars arrived.
When the race finally got going, Rosberg checked out, but Ricciardo was never too far behind him in second. Meanwhile, Hamilton was struggling back in third place and lost that to Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen in the middle of the race, although he then took it back via use of undercut in the final round of stops.
However, Rosberg elected to stay out in the closing laps, even though the team was out waiting for him in the pits. Traffic had held Rosberg up on - what would have been - his in-lap, and he would have lost the lead to Ricciardo had he pit. Ricciardo then began closing in on Rosberg at the rate of 2 seconds a lap.
However, Ricciardo's tires faded at the end, and he crossed the line less than half a second behind Rosberg.
The Mercedes teammates had struggled with brake temperatures during the race, but both drivers still finished on the podium.
Behind them, Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel salvaged a fifth-place finish after having started from the rear of the field, while Verstappen placed sixth after several in-race battles, including one with Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat, who had had Verstappen's seat earlier in the year. Fernando Alonso gave McLaren a solid finish in seventh while Sergio Perez finished in eighth in his Force India. Kvyat placed ninth while Renault picked up a point with Kevin Magnussen in 10th.
Unofficial race results:
