Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel ended his barren 394-day winless run with a race victory under the bright lights of Singapore’s Marina Bay at the F1 Singapore Grand Prix, seizing advantage of a fortuitous strategy call from his team, to beat the pole-sitter and fellow team-mate, Charles Leclerc.

During the opening stages of the race, Leclerc made the perfect getaway from pole, comfortably heading Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and with Vettel in third place.

However, Nico Hulkenberg made an early pit stop, due to a puncture as a result of contact with Carlos Sainz when he stuck his Renault up the inside of Sainz at Turn 5.

Early pit-stop for Vettel and Max Verstappen

Fitted with the new hard tyres, Hulkenberg’s speed was impressive. Ferrari made the decision to bring Vettel in at Lap 19, with Vettel rejoining the race just ahead of Hulkenberg.

Said Vettel, “Just the corner before, like Turn 21, the last turn before the pit entry, I received the call. I don’t know if it was because someone pitted or all of a sudden the gap was big enough.”

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who had been complaining about his tyres, also entered the pits at the same time.

Leclerc pits on the next lap

Due to his fresh, hard tyres, Vettel undercut team-mate Leclerc, who pitted on the next lap, rejoining the race behind his team-mate.

Unsurprisingly, Leclerc was furious with the decision and repeatedly questioned the call on team radio, even asking them to give him more power so that he could attack Vettel, but the team told him to hold position.

Had he known in advance that Vettel had pitted, could Leclerc have pushed a bit harder on his in-lap in order to come out on track ahead of Vettel?

Said Leclerc, “At that time, obviously the tyres were quite dead, but probably before, I had quite a lot of margin. In the first few laps, obviously, we wanted to go as slow as we possibly could for the guys behind to not have the window to pit. So yeah, in that period, I could have done a much better job. But I stick to the plan.”

Mercedes takes a gamble

Despite the two Ferraris pitting early, Mercedes however, did not react with Hamilton, perhaps taking the gamble to wait for a Safety Car to appear. As a result, Hamilton appeared to slow down, losing some ground on the leaders.

When no safety car appeared, Hamilton eventually pitted seven laps after the Ferraris, and rejoining the race in fourth place.

Appearance of Safety Car

The safety car eventually appeared mid-race, when George Russell and Romain Grosjean collided, resulting in the Williams’ driver’s first DNF this season and maintaining the 100% safety car record at every edition of the Singapore Grand Prix so far.

After the race resumed, Leclerc attempted to ask for everything to go after the victory that he deserved, but Ferrari warned him not to take any risks.

The safety car would appear two more times during the race, secondly when Racing Point asked Sergio Perez to stop his car on track, and thirdly when Daniil Kyvat and Kimi Raikkonen made contact at Turn 1 – resulting in Raikkonen’s retirement from the race due to his car’s front-left suspension being broken.

Vettel takes the chequered flag

With 10 laps more to go once the race resumed for the third time, Vettel made the most of the neutralisations to successfully manage his tyres, and take the chequered flag.

Said Vettel on his win, “I’m happy! Obviously it’s been a good night. I knew that it would be tricky from where we started. I was trying to push as hard as I can at the start. It was very close with Lewis, very fair, but close, so I couldn’t really get ahead of him.”

Also continued Vettel, “I knew that the races here in Singapore usually start very slow, and that Charles would take it easy to control the race, which he did. Back in the train, obviously it’s not so easy to stay close to the car in front, looking after your tyres, so that’s what I tried to do, to be able to stay with them as much as I could once they were picking up the pace.”

Leclerc makes it a 1-2 for Ferrari

Leclerc finished in second place to make it a one-two for Ferrari, the first time that a team has done so in the history of the Singapore Grand Prix.

Said Leclerc, “It’s always difficult to lose a win like that, but in the end, it’s a one-two for the team, so I’m very happy for that. Of course, I’m disappointed on my side, as anyone would be. Sometimes it goes that way and I’ll come back stronger. I’m not completely happy but the overall result of the weekend is very positive and one that we definitely did not expect on a track like this.”

Verstappen finishes in third

And Verstappen rounded off the podium in third position – ensuring that there was no Mercedes on the podium for the second time in the last 27 races.

Said Verstappen, “The whole race went well. Of course in the beginning, it was all going really slow so everyone was very close together. Then I started to struggle a bit with the tyres so we boxed and actually that was quite a good call as we undercut Lewis at the end.”

He continued, “It’s always difficult to overtake here, so to do it by strategy is of course very positive. From then onwards, it was all about managing the tyres home.”

However, Verstappen admitted that holding onto third position had proved to be more challenging as the race drew to a close, though.

Said Verstappen, “Lewis was pushing hard. My tyres were going off a little bit, but I think that’s quite normal. His tyres were seven or eight laps better than mine and with seven laps to go, I didn’t have any problems; they started with four laps to go.”

He also added, “I could see that Lewis was closing in so I had to make sure I had good exits out of some crucial corners where I knew he was going to be quick. We managed to do that. I guess the people in the garage were a bit more nervous. I was just focusing on getting good exits.”