22.9.13

Singapore. The toughest track on the calendar. Heat and humidity. Drivers lose on average 4 kilos of fluids during this ‘23 corners of no chance to get your breath, night time Formula 1 nonstop action’ ... Or is it?

To avoid 'jet lag' and to acclimatise to the evening race the drivers and team come to Singapore still synced to the euro time zone, staying up till 6am local time and having their breakfast at lunch time. For Alonso it has to be make or break. Surely this was the last chance for Ferrari with Alonso 53 points behind Red Bull's seemingly unbeatable Vettel.

Ferrari have gone all out with updates for this race. Over the three practice sessions and race weekend I've never seen so many different front wings on a car, trying out 7,5 and 3 outer element winglets on the car. Were they confident of the set up or just trying to eek out that last bit of performance...? Only Ferrari know that. One thing for sure, the F138 didn't look anywhere near as planted as the Red Bull round this demanding street circuit.

Red Bull dominated qualifying. So much so, with two minutes to go, Vettel, over half a second faster than nearest rival Mercedes's Rosberg, boxed and was out the car, which for me was perhaps the most exciting moments of the race as the track came to the drivers right at the end of Q3. On his final lap Rosberg almost clinched pole – just 1/10th of a second behind Sebastian Vettel. Ross Brawn’s RT to Nico said it all "watching your lap getting somewhat anxious!" Lotus's Grosjean took a very respectable 3rd place on the grid.

With Ferrari changing the car in P1, P2, P3 and qualifying and Red Bull seemingly becoming stronger and stronger you just couldn't help but think that Red Bull had this race in the bag.

And they had. From the shortest start straight of the year Alonso's launch was magnificent. Overtaking the pack on the outside he catapulted himself from 7th to 3rd. Brilliant. But really that was perhaps it. Singapore is always a parade in some respects. Very difficult to overtake, especially with 150kg fuel burning off at 2.6kg / lap. And as always the safety car made an appearance when Ricciardo put his car into the barrier on lap 25. Five laps later and Vettel pulled away from the pack again on restart. There was some fabulous racing late on between Hamilton / Rosberg / Perez and Massa, but Vettel was faultless, taking his 33rd career win, now putting him in 4th place on the all time win list.

The Singapore night time GP looks beautiful from the air, but is it just me or does anyone else think from the track side and drivers view the scenery is dare I say slightly bland? Grey track and Armco fencing, dark background, no spectators visible. Reminiscent of sub shopping centre car park racing...

As Vettel sailed over the finish line 32.6 seconds ahead of Alonso, he was greeted with a night sky lit with fireworks. In the background Mark Webber's Red Bull, with dropping water pressure and eventually no water, lets go, with flames lighting up the rear of the car on his last lap.

Alonso did a great job saving his tyres and finishing second. A great Lotus strategy, pit stopping under the safety car, and careful tyre management, allowed Raikkonen to take the well deserved final podium place. Bearing in mind the terrible back problems he had that nearly made him drop out on Saturday too.

For me, the highlight of the race was Alonso giving Mark Webber a lift back to parc ferme on his car. Sadly, running across the track and flagging down Fernando's Fezza resulted in Mark’s third stewards’ reprimand of the season, which means a ten-place grid drop at the next round in Korea.

Following the race Alonso stated that finishing second felt like a victory such was Vettel's dominance of the race. Whether or not Alonso is still a contender or not remains to be seen. Ferrari need a second a lap increase in performance. But slim as it is he is still in it mathematically at least, now being 60 points behind with 150 available. Through his own admission his championship hopes now depend on luck and Vettel hitting trouble in the remaining six races.

At some point Ferrari have to throw the towel in and develop next year’s car and parts that will serve this season and next, but Alonso is adamant he will push to the end.

The rumours in the pit lane have been more than ever recently. Raikkonen confirmed as going to Ferrari, possible move to Lotus for Massa? Ricciardo confirmed to Red Bull and now even mention of Alonso in talks with McLaren. That would be an interesting return following the fateful 2007 season with Lewis Hamilton.

Rumours are that Ferrari are not prepared for the big changes of 2014 as much as they would like to be. And Alonso's recent open criticism of Ferrari and shenanigans with Mr Montezemolo only fuels the debate.

Yet an Alonso / Raikkonen double world champion driver line up would give Ferrari its strongest pairing since 1953. I'm sure it would be spectacular. Only time will tell.

Click here for FIA lap chart.

Stefano Domenicali:“Clearly, with yet another win for Vettel, to whom I send my congratulations, the Drivers’ Championship situation is becoming difficult, but until the outcome is a mathematical certainty, we will continue to push. A reasonably clear scenario emerged from Friday’s practice, in which apart from the leaders being very strong, we were also up against Mercedes and Lotus, who were also back to being very competitive here in Singapore. We finished ahead of them in unfavourable conditions and this should motivate us to give it our all over the last six races “.

Fernando Alonso: “Today’s second place is like a victory for us, at the end of a difficult weekend on a track where it’s very tricky to overtake. The key points of this race were the start and the strategy and, in both cases, the decisions taken proved to be the right ones, even if they were aggressive choices. At the start, I managed to pass four cars, helped by having watched the starts from previous races here, but then I couldn’t pass Rosberg. The decision to pit when the Safety Car came out paid off, even if it wasn’t easy to get to the finish with the tyres on the limit. Fortunately, thanks to the advantage I had over Raikkonen and Webber, we were able to manage the situation over the final laps: if I’d been in a group, it would have been like the end of a horror movie!”.

Felipe Massa: “Given everything that happened in today’s race, sixth place is a really good result. After a fantastic start, at the first corner I found myself stuck inside the cars that had braked early and, at that point I lost places instead of making up some. From then on, I was always stuck behind other cars and we all know how hard it is to overtake at this track”.