Lewis Hamilton has won the 2018 Singapore Grand Prix after driving a beautifully controlled race, making it his 69th career win and 44th when starting from pole position. Red Bull's Max Verstappen finished in second place, whilst Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel completed the podium in what must surely be considered a disappointing result for the Scuderia on a track where they were arguably expecting to win.
At the start, Hamilton got away well and led going into turn 1. Verstappen held second going into turn1, but Vettel got past him going into turn 7, just before the Safety Car (SC) was deployed for an incident involving the two Force India drivers, Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon, in which the latter ended up in the wall and retired from the race, maintaining the record of the SC being deployed in every Singapore Grand Prix. The incident was investigated, but no further action was taken.
The SC came in at the end of lap 4, with Hamilton getting a good restart and opening up a gap of around one second to Vettel. The top 6 at this point were: Hamilton, Vettel, Verstappen, Bottas, Raikkonen and Ricciardo.
Hamilton was initially just controlling the pace up at the front, without driving particularly fast. He began to put the hammer down on lap 13, and set a couple of very fast laps. On lap 15, Vettel pitted for a set of ultra-softs in an attempt to undercut Hamilton. Hamilton responded on the following lap and pitted for a set of softs, re-emerging ahead of Vettel, with Perez sandwiched between them. Verstappen stayed out a couple of laps longer, and pitted onto a set of softs, and, despite a slow get-away from his pit box, came out of the pits wheel-to-wheel with Vettel, who had been stuck behind Perez, and the Dutchman defended strongly and took the position. Vettel was certainly not best pleased with his team, who rather messed up his strategy, as, firstly they lost track position to Verstappen, and secondly they were on the less durable (if grippier) ultra-soft tyres, with Vettel very concerned that he may need to make another pitstop, saying that "These tyres will not make it to the end".
Raikkonen pitted on lap 22 for a set of soft tyres, whilst Ricciardo pitted on lap 28 for a set of ultra-soft tyres. The order of the top 6 was now in exactly the same order as before the pitstops, with the exception that Verstappen was now ahead of Vettel.
After Perez made his pitstop, he re-emerged behind the Williams of Sergey Sirotkin. Although the Mexican had fresher tyres, try as he might, he was simply unable to get past Sirotkin. On lap 34, he managed to get alongside, and, in what was both an outrageous as well as idiotic move, moved to the left and collided into Sirotkin, giving himself a puncture and duly being given a drive-through penalty for a moment of sheer madness.
On lap 38, Grosjean was right behind Sirotkin who was really struggling on his soft tyres. Whilst Grosjean was trying to get past the Russian, Hamilton was coming up behind to lap them. As they were battling very hard (Grosjean and Sirotkin), Hamilton slowed considerably in order not to risk getting involved in a tangle. Verstappen managed to close up massively (to Hamilton) and he spotted half an opportunity to get past Hamilton, and forced him to defend the position (which Hamilton managed successfully). Hamilton eventually safely got the past the lapped cars, whilst Verstappen got slightly held up behind Grosjean, much to his annoyance, saying: "What the **** are they doing?". Hamilton was also a little bit frustrated beforehand, saying that they were crazy. Grosjean was given a 5-sceond penalty for ignoring blue flags (which tell a driver that a car is set to lap them and hence they have to give way). Sirotkin later on in the race was given a 5-second time penalty himself for forcing Brendon Hartley off the track.
In the end, there was just no stopping Hamilton up at the front, who went on to win the race by a margin of 8.961 seconds from Verstappen who drove a very solid race to second place. Vettel tailed off massively on his older tyres towards the end, and dropped to 39.945 seconds behind Hamilton in the end, though he did finish in third and managed to make the ultra-soft tyre last to the end, whether by desire or due to no option. All the top 6 finished in the order they started the race, whilst McLaren's Fernando Alonso drove an impressive race to finish seventh, whilst Carlos Sainz, Charles Leclerc and Nico Hulkenberg completed the points-scoring finishes.
Classification:
Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes
Max Verstappen - Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer
Sebastian Vettel - Ferrari
Valtteri Bottas - Mercedes
Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari
Daniel Ricciardo - Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer
Fernando Alonso - McLaren-Renault
Carlos Sainz - Renault
Charles Leclerc - Sauber-Ferrari
Nico Hulkenberg - Renault
Marcus Ericsson - Sauber-Ferrari
Stoffel Vandoorne - McLaren-Renault
Romain Grosjean - Haas-Ferrari
Pierre Gasly - Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda
Lance Stroll - Williams-Mercedes
Sergio Perez - Racing Point Force India-Mercedes
Brendon Hartley - Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda
Kevin Magnussen - Haas-Ferrari
Sergey Sirotkin - Williams-Mercedes
Did not finish: Esteban Ocon
World Championship classification:
Lewis Hamilton - 281 points
Sebastian Vettel - 241 points
Kimi Raikkonen - 174 points
Valtteri Bottas - 171 points
Max Verstappen - 148 points
Daniel Ricciardo - 126 points
Nico Hulkenberg - 53 points
Fernando Alonso - 50 points
Kevin Magnussen - 49 points
Sergio Perez - 46 points
Esteban Ocon - 45 points
Carlos Sainz - 38 points
Pierre Gasly - 28 points
Romain Grosjean - 27 points
Charles Leclerc - 15 points
Stoffel Vandoorne - 8 points
Lance Stroll - 6 points
Marcus Ericsson - 6 points
Brendon Hartley - 2 points
Sergey Sirotkin - 1 point
Constructors' Championship classification:
Mercedes - 452 points
Ferrari - 415 points
Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer - 274 points
Renault - 91 points
Haas-Ferrari - 76 points
McLaren-Renault - 58 points
Racing Point Force India-Mercedes - 32 points
Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda - 30 points
Sauber-Ferrari - 21 points
Williams-Mercedes - 7 points