Lap by lap Coverage of the Singapore Grand Prix (Part 2)
After a safety car, a retirement and a lot of action, the race stabilized a bit as it entered lap 7. Mark Webber made another quick move on Kamui Kobayashi in the Sauber around turn 3 and went up to 9th place and was trying to recover some places
as he decided to pit during the safety car period. However, things did not look too good for the Aussie as he lost a whole second to the race leaders in the middle sector mainly because he was using the hard tyres and they did not suit the Marina Bay circuit
as Hulkenberg was also complaining about the hard tyres with his team.
The race leader Fernando Alonso was now 1.2 seconds ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton was another 2 seconds behind in 3rd place. Make Webber was getting slower every lap as he was 2 seconds short of his teammate’s time in lap 8. Alonso
proceeded to score back-to-back fast laps in laps 9 and 10 and was looking good as Vettel was asked to cool the brakes. Webber finally made a move on Michael Schumacher to take the 8th place.
Vettel told his team that the car is good but he is not pushing after setting the fastest lap of the race in lap 15. Hamilton suffered severely in lap 16 as he was over a second slower than Sebastian Vettel. Meanwhile, Hulkenberg and Massa passed Timo Glock
for 12th and 13th places respectively. Mark Webber was now a painful 30 seconds behind the leaders and the harder tyre was hurting his run badly. His gambled did not turn his way and the Aussie was suffering dearly after 18 laps. Fernando
seemed to be in the perfect position as he told his team that he would keep going. It seems that after lap 22, Mark Webber was now racing the McLarens and was 22 seconds behind Lewis Hamilton. Mark was told that he was racing Hamilton now as he had the required
margin until now for overtaking him during the McLaren’s pit that was expected in one of the next couple of laps.
The championship leader barely survived as he was inches away from the barrier in lap 23 but managed to maintain control of his Red Bull. Hamilton was asked to time 3 tenths a lap faster than Mark in order to stay ahead of him during his pits but both of
the McLarens struggled, as they were now 2 seconds slower than Webber’s time. Lewis Hamilton did not look too good as he was 28 seconds down on the race leader Fernando Alonso by lap 28 and just 20 seconds ahead of Mark Webber while Vettel was just 1.9 seconds
short of Fernando. Hamilton decided to pit in lap 29 to change his tyres but came out a behind Mark Webber by quite a margin. It seems that Hamilton is suffering severely while Webber is looking great and is set to finish in the podium.
The two front-runners Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel both came in for a fresh set of tyres and both of them managed to stay ahead of Hamilton and Webber. Kamui Kobayashi and Bruno Senna lost control of their cars and ran into the barrier in the tunnel
forcing another safety car period.
Quite ironically, Lewis tells his team that his drink button is not working properly as the safety car stays out and Button is asked to push even harder at the restart as the safety is expected to come off the track after lap 35. After the frustrating safety
car period, Lewis Hamilton tried to make a move on Mark Webber but collided with the back of his car and retired for a second time in row. The British driver furiously threw his steering wheel out of the cockpit. It was hard to tell who was at fault there
and the steward will review the move later on.
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