Vettel storms to Singapore win at night, title on ice
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Shanghai Daily, September 26, 2011
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Sebastian Vettel of Germany and Red Bull Racing celebrates on the podium after winning the Singapore Formula One Grand Prix at the Marina Bay Street Circuit on September 25, 2011 in Singapore. |
German driver Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull wins the Formula One Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday evening, taking the trophy for the ninth time in the 14 races so far this year.
However, the win is still not enough to give him the 125 points of lead needed to secure the world championship for the 24-year-old. He now has 309 points with five races to go. Briton Jenson Button of McLaren finished in the second place on Sunday to overtake Spaniard Fernando Alonso of Ferrari with 185 points, just 124 points behind Vettel, who won the world title last year.
Vettel headed off to a good start from the pole position on supersofts on Sunday evening and managed to establish a comfortable lead soon.
He said he was trying to push as hard as could in the beginning to open the gap and the car was amazing.
"I was surprised myself, you know, that I was able to pull away that much. After a couple of laps I already had around 10 seconds gap. Obviously that puts us in a very comfortable position so we can control the scene from there -- control the tyres," he said.
Vettel said he had it all in control even towards the end when trailing Button narrows the gap. He changed back to a set of supersofts he started on in the 49th lap to make it faster.
Vettel shall be able to secure the world title in Japan if he makes it to the top ten to get the 1 point he needed.
"Statistically the chances are on our side. But we still have to do it," he said.
He finished the 61 laps on the 5.073 Marina Bay Street Circuit in 1 hour 59 minutes and 6.757 seconds.
Button finished in the second place with a gap of 1.737 seconds after narrowing his gaps towards the end of the race. He was delayed towards the end of the race by a scrapping between the two drivers of Williams.
Australian Mark Webber of Red Bull changed to harder tyres after several laps and was not able to get back to the second position he started with. He finished in the third place with a gap of 29.279 seconds.
Alonso finished in the fourth place.
Legend Michael Schumacher run into the rear of another driver and hit the wall but was fortunate to be unhurt.
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