Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) leads the 2014 drivers’ championship after a finely judged drive at Marina Bay. The Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Daniel Ricciardo completed the podium.
In Thier own words:
SEBASTIAN VETTEL
“It’s a circuit I like here, the atmosphere‘s great and it’s a tough event. I had a good start and got past Daniel and had a decent race. We played a bit with strategy after we got undercut by Alonso, the safety car came at the worst time for us but we made the tyres work at the end which was tough. There was no point fighting Lewis at the end, he was on fresh tyres and I had to manage mine to the end as they were pretty old by then; that was the focus. It was nice to get the cold champagne on the podium.”
DANIEL RICCIARDO:
“We were really close to the Mercedes in qualifying and we expected the race pace to be a bit faster today to be honest. We weren’t quick enough in the first stint and we had a few other issues going on, with brakes and some power issues that were coming and going, but in terms of points we still got a good handful to take away from here. It actually feels a bit like a home race here. Singapore to Perth is like Melbourne to Perth, so for West Australians it’s not too far. Suzuka is in two weeks and that’s another track we can be optimistic for, so I’m looking forward to that. All in all it was a solid weekend.”
CHRISTIAN HORNER, Team Principal: “A tremendous performance by both drivers. After an interesting start, Fernando had to give back the position to Sebastian, but unfortunately not Daniel also, and after that it was all about getting into the race. We went onto the soft tyre at the first stop, by the time we got to the second, Fernando had got the undercut on us, so we went onto the different tyre to change the strategy. Then the pace car came out and we were in a horrible situation of having to decide if the tyre could make it to the end, but the drivers did an incredible job today, and got the cars to the finish on what must have been minimal rubber by the end. So, second and third is a great team performance, especially with the double pit stop during the race which was done in an exceptional time.”
THIERRY SALVI, Renault:
“A difficult race today but we got the most we could have expected with a double podium. Sebastian had to fight from the beginning of the race, pushing to get the maximum of the car while keeping the tyre degradation under control. He managed very well until the end of the race and second place is a great result for him and the team. Daniel had reliability issues with his power unit and had to manage the energy management in very tricky situations. He again proved his ability to stay calm and focused, even in difficult situations, and stayed very quick. Once again reliability is the key point and we suffered this weekend. The car has the potential to win and we need to work harder to deliver it in the final races of the season.”
Felipe Massa finished fifth and Valtteri Bottas eleventh in an eventful Singapore Grand Prix.
A long safety car period after the second pit stops led to a change in strategy from a three-stop to a two-stop race. Felipe was able to use his strategy to jump the Ferrari of Raikonnen and keep him behind him. Valtteri unfortunately ran out of tyre grip on the last lap dropping him from sixth to eleventh in the final corners.
WILLIAMS MARTINI RACING maintained its third place in the Constructors’ Championship.
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering:
“We knew it was going to be damage limitation this weekend and on balance we should be pleased with the result as up until the final few corners, we were set to score the same number of points as our nearest rivals in the Championship. We took a calculated risk with the strategy and this succeeded for Felipe as it kept him ahead of Raikonnen who had a faster car, but with Valtteri it didn’t pay off as he ran out of tyres on the final lap which cost him sixth place. The drivers did a magnificent job behind the wheel and the team has operated very well all weekend. We are heading to tracks that will suit our car more now and we have maintained our third place in the Championship which was the objective at the beginning of the weekend.
Felipe Massa:
We changed the strategy from a three-stop to a two-stop after the long safety car period, and the final stint was pushing the tyre to the absolute limit but I managed to make it work. The grip levels were very low in the final few laps but I had a big enough gap to sixth place to ease the car home. Given the nature of the track, fifth was probably the best position we could have hoped for this weekend, but I am of course disappointed for the team that Valtteri’s tyres were not able to hold on until the end.
Valtteri Bottas:
After the safety car we moved to a two-stop strategy and in the end the tyres just weren’t able to hold on. In the final lap I had a big lock up in the rear tyres when I was defending and after that I had no grip and cars could easily sweep past. I also had an issue with the power steering in the final stint and this made it harder to keep the tyres alive as I lost a lot of feeling in the car. If I hadn’t had this issue then I might have been able to go until the end. Obviously I’m disappointed not to finish in the points but we can take a lot of positives from this weekend as we looked competitive at a track that is less suited to our car and we have kept third place in the Constructors’ Championship.
Full Results:
http://web.archive.org/web/20141008131501/http://www.formula1.com/results/season/2014/929/7395/
Photo credits: Steven Tee/Williams , Redbull