The German won that battle, although the result was only confirmed three hours
later after a stewards’ inquiry into an incident behind a safety car in
which Button swerved to avoid the Red Bull. No action was deemed necessary.
Vettel’s win lifted him into second in the championship, 29 points behind
Alonso and ready for a 2010-style late assault on the title.
It was so, so cruel on Hamilton, who felt he had been “cruising” to victory.
Funnily enough, the man whose future has been the subject of so much
speculation over the last month, who looked as miserable as sin after
winning in Monza two weeks ago, was unusually phlegmatic on Sunday night
just when he had every reason to be downcast.
Perhaps he knows a conclusion to his contract saga is around the corner.
Hamilton insisted afterwards that he still had not decided whether to stick
or twist, but the way he talked about McLaren over the weekend, allied to
the superiority of his car for a fourth race in succession, gave the
distinct impression that differences had been settled and he would not be
gambling on Mercedes.
“We’ve just been a bit unlucky,” shrugged Hamilton, who said DNFs [failing to
finish races] were proving costly. “You can’t afford DNFs and we’ve had far
too many this season. We had opportunities at the start of the year and
didn’t take them. Now we’ve had them again and unfortunately other things
have intervened. That’s life.”
Asked if he would be remonstrating with anyone at the team, given the fact
that he himself has been largely blameless this year, Hamilton added: “They
are working as hard as they can. These things just happen when you are in a
fierce, competitive year. It’s not their fault over Grosjean or Maldonado’s
collision or the puncture in Germany. It’s just unfortunate.
“We had the pace to win this weekend. Before I retired, I was cruising; just
managing the gap back to Seb.”
It certainly seemed that way. After a moment of silence on the grid to reflect
on the death last week of the ‘Prof’, Sid Watkins, Formula One’s inimitable
race doctor for a quarter of a century, Singapore’s floodlit spectacular got
under way with a minimum of fuss.
Hamilton made a clean start from pole while alongside him in the Williams
Pastor Maldonado lost places to Vettel and Button. That was how things
stayed for the next 22 laps, only the first round of pit stops breaking the
flow of the race. It was all about to change.
McLaren admitted afterwards that they had been monitoring the problem for a
few laps, but when Hamilton pulled over it was a huge shock to the watching
public.
“We knew before him. It was painful,” said McLaren team principal Martin
Whitmarsh, who nevertheless reserved praise for Hamilton’s mature response.
“He is dealing with it like a real champion,” Whitmarsh said. “We will look
ahead to the final six races – there are 150 points available. This was not
a circuit we particularly fancied, but we have a quick car and we can go and
dominate in Suzuka.”
With Hamilton out it was left to Button to try to hunt down Vettel. The 2009
world champion gave it a good go, but was never quite able to get within
range to use the DRS overtaking aid despite two safety car periods, the
first a result of Narain Karthikeyan’s HRT stopping on track on lap 32, and
the second the result of Michael Schumacher wiping out Toro Rosso’s
Jean-Eric Vergne.
Mercedes’s veteran, whose future is unclear with Hamilton weighing up a
move, admitted his guilt to the stewards and was handed a 10-place grid
penalty for Japan.
The race ended one lap early, the maximum two-hour time limit having expired.
As the sell-out crowd sauntered off to Raffles Hotel to down some Singapore
Slings, thrilled at what they had just witnessed, Hamilton did his best to
rid himself of the bitter taste in his own mouth.
“I never give up,” he promised. “I have no doubt with this car we can fight.
But we need to win every race from now on.”