Marina Bay had already been labelled a success before the nineteen cars took their places on the grid under the glare of the floodlights – Giancarlo Fisichella starting from the pit lane – and with autumn leaves falling on the track the row of red lights went out, and the first night race in f1 history was on.
Felipe Massa capitalised on his pole position and led second place man Lewis Hamilton away, while Kimi Raikkonen and Robert Kubica slotted into third and fourth.
T wasn’t so easy for the Pole in the BMW, however, as Heikki Kovalainen had already launched an attack, and the two cars touched with the McLaren getting decidedly out of shape and losing places to both Timo Glock in the Toyota, and Sebastian Vettel in the Toro Rosso. In fact, Kovalainen took the place back from Glock, only for the young German to immediately reclaim positions with a tremendous effort.
Notable behind this lot was the scrap for places just beyond the points where Jarno Trulli had a one stopping Toyota holding up the two Williams cars of Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima, who in turn had Fernando Alonso in the fast starting Renault on their tale. Rosberg and Alonso, in particular, needed to get by Trulli as they had both opted to start the race on the option super soft tyre, and would be pitting quite early. The significance of this was not yet clear, but about to become so very soon.
It would be seven laps before Rosberg got past Trulli, and two laps later Nakajima and Alonso did the same, then on the 12th lap Alonso dived into the pits, taking on a load of fuel that pointed to a long middle stint and new soft tyres, and rejoined the fun and games.
Massa was easing away from Hamilton out front – the gap now around three seconds – while behind the McLaren, Raikkonen had woken up and began turning in fastest laps, chipping away quite considerably at the Englishman’s leads over the Ferrari.
Robert Kubica could do nothing about the front three, the BMW simply not having the pace, but had Vettel and Glock, Kovalainen and Nick Heidfeld – these four running in close company – easily covered at this point.
Then Nelson Piquet spun, backing the Renault into a wall and showering debris across the track. The Brazilian was out of the car in no time, and in a brilliant opportunist move red Bull brought both Mark Webber and David Coulthard into the pits, Honda doing the same with Barrichello, in the seconds before the safety car was deployed and, with it, the pit lane closed.
This should have been fantastic news for Rubens, but the Honda crawled to a halt before another lap had been completed, and all chance of taking advantage of the situation gone.
Worse still, both Kubica and Rosberg were running very low on fuel and, needing to either pit or simply run out, were forced to call in and fall foul of the ridiculous ‘pit closed’ rule.
This is not the first time that drivers have had races ruined this season by this absurd situation, and wit will not be the last, so please can we have something done about it, and quickly?
When the pit lane finally opened they came in droves, and while all went well at McLaren, where Hamilton was turned around in the usual slick manner, things were not so good over at Ferrari.
Race leader Massa cruised calmly into his pit, waited for the green light that is the signal to go on Ferrari’s automated pit system – no lollipops here – and duly went. Taking with him a fuel hose that was not even close to being removed, and very nearly the men attached to it, too.
To make matters worse, with several feet of hose still attached to the car, the Ferrari was released directly into the path of – as at Valencia – Adrian Sutil in the Force India, and while evasive action was taken, this really is a system that is clearly open to error, and potentially lethal error at that.
Massa cruised to a halt at the end of the pit lane, a certain win gone, and waited while the crew refilled Raikkonen, who had been patiently waiting behind and saw the entire episode from a front row seat, and then a gaggle of men in red suits ran down to the car and struggled with the hose before finally managing to release it. Massa rejoined the pack at the back.
The order now was somewhat different, for circulating behind the safety car – driven here by none other than Alex Wurz – Rosberg held the lead – although was expected to be called din for a penalty – Trulli and Fisichella, both yet to stop and on one stop strategies, next, with Kubica, another expecting a penalty, followed by Alonso and the Red Bull pair of Webber and Coulthard.
With Hamilton behind these, and Raikkonen and Massa among the last few runners, things suddenly looked very different in terms of the title race.
The safety car pulled in on lap 19 and Williams, knowing that a penalty was coming, instructed their man Rosberg to go as quickly as possible and open up a gap. This he duly did, helped no end by the fact that he had Trulli and Fisichella holding up the rest of the field.
Massa was handed a drive through for the unsafe pit release, and BMW and Williams were informed of their impending stop and go penalties as is required. Kubica took his on lap 28 – unlike Rosberg the Pole had been stuck in traffic and unable to make up any time whatsoever – his race, therefore, ruined, while Rosberg stayed out as long as possible and pitted on lap 29 for his penalty stop.
Around this time Webber took a detour across the run off at one of the chicanes and lost a few places, but that became irrelevant a couple of laps later when the team were forced to retire an ailing car. A pity for Mark as, even with the mistake, a couple of points were surely on the cards.
With penalties served, then, Trulli led Alonso – Fisichella having made his one and only stop – from Rosberg, Coulthard, Hamilton, Glock, Vettel and Heidfeld.
Trulli soon made his only stop, coming out in eighth and giving Alonso a 14 second lead over Rosberg, and after the next round of stops – before which Nakajima had managed to pass Trulli, and Hamilton despatched Coulthard – the order settled down with Alonso comfortably leading the Williams, and Hamilton a handy third.
Raikkonen had by this point wrestled the Ferrari into a points paying position, but Massa was having a torrid time further back and, with just ten laps left, spun the Ferrari before recovering, and in the process unsighting – again – Adrian Sutil, who nosed into the wall and brought out the safety car once again.
It would be a short with before the field was released, and while Alonso pulled away with ease and Rosberg had Hamilton under control, Raikkonen set about attacking Glock, only to get it all wrong and slam into the barriers, race over and – after a promising start that promised much – no points for Ferrari.
Alonso, then, drove to a brilliant 20th victory, and there will be few who begrudge this massive talent the opportunity to stand on the top step of the podium, while Rosberg got a rare opportunity to remind us what a major player he will be in the future of Formula One, and Hamilton took a handy six points, restoring his title lead to – quite ironically – the position it would have been had he been allowed to win at Spa.
Fourth went to Glock, who simply gets better with each race, and fifth to everybody’s current darling Sebastian Vettel with another excellent effort, while sixth gave Nick Heidfeld more points, a reward for a completely unfair penalty that had relegated him three positions, seventh to Coulthard, and the final point to Nakajima.
Marina Bay, Singapore, gave us a great spectacle, and some fine racing, and will be welcomed back with open arms next year. Fernando Alonso, meanwhile, will have made Ferrari wonder if they have made the right decision in extending Kimi Raikkonen’s contract.
Written: Mon, 29 Sep 2008 08:54:15
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