Vettel takes third win as Hamilton retires in Singapore

Sebastian Vettel took his third victory of the season as Lewis Hamilton retired from the Singapore Grand Prix.

The four-time world champion took a lights to flag win as he managed his pace ahead of Daniel Ricciardo, with Vettel always having the speed to respond to the Red Bull. Kimi Raikkonen came home a distant third having been unable to match his team-mates performance throughout the race.

Hamilton was running in fourth place when he reported a loss of power, dropping down the field after a string of slow laps before Mercedes eventually allowed him to retire the car.

Mercedes' prediction that it would be uncompetitive in the race rang true, with Nico Rosberg finishing fourth and never a threat to the leading trio as he finished nearly 25 seconds adrift of Vettel. The margin was smaller than it would have been but for two safety car periods, the second of which came when a person started walking on the track.

Valtteri Bottas was fifth for Williams ahead of Daniil Kvyat, with the Russian unfortunate to lose positions when he made his first pit stop just before a Virtual Safety Car (VSC) period.

The start of the race saw Vettel retain his lead and produce a stunning first lap to open up a three-second lead over Ricciardo, while Raikkonen looked quick behind the Red Bull. However, Ricciardo soon settled in to a rhythm and put enough distance between himself and the second Ferrari before edging back towards Vettel.

Further back, Rosberg held off Bottas at the start while Max Verstappen stalled on the grid and had to be pushed in to the pit lane, rejoining a lap down but taking advantage of the safety car periods to recover. Verstappen would later be the centre of controversy at Toro Rosso in the closing laps.

Kvyat was the first of the front-runners to pit on lap 11, but two laps later he was hampered by a VSC. Felipe Massa was exiting the pits with Nico Hulkenberg approaching Turn 1, and with cars being fed out towards the apex of Turn 3 the Force India driver left no room on the inside. The contact saw Hulkenberg's left rear suspension broken as he ended up in the wall on the outside of the track, with the VSC soon becoming a full safety car to allow debris to be cleared.

An investigation from the stewards saw Hulkenberg penalised with a three-place grid drop, which he will have to take at the Japanese Grand Prix. Massa also received a puncture in the incident and dropped out of the top ten as a result.

With the whole top seven - Vettel, Ricciardo, Raikkonen, Hamilton, Rosberg, Bottas and Perez - pitting under the VSC, Kvyat dropped from fourth to sixth as the two Mercedes switched to soft tyres and looked well placed to pick up solid points after struggling for grip all weekend. However, Hamilton reported a loss of power on lap 26, with the team telling him the throttle was not opening fully and then reporting "multiple issues" before retiring the championship leader.

Hamilton's problem was immediately preceded by Massa retiring after slowing dramatically, and then followed by Fernando Alonso also returning to the garage having been running in the top ten for McLaren.

With Vettel managing the pace at the front and then opening up a lead at will, Jenson Button was running as high as sixth place for McLaren after Kvyat made a slow second stop, but the Red Bull had just overtaken Button when a second safety car period bunched up the field again.

Vettel radioed in to his team on lap 37 to say there was a person on the circuit, with the safety car immediately being deployed. Cameras picked up the man walking along the Esplanade Bridge, facing the direction of the oncoming cars as he headed towards Turn 13.

The man had yet to be approached when he climbed back through a gap in the fencing, allowing the race to restart.

On the restart, Pastor Maldonado was defending robustly from Button when the McLaren driver hit the rear of the Lotus exiting Turn 17, complaining over the radio: "I should have known, really, he's mental." Both drivers were cleared by the stewards after an investigation, but Button retired soon after with gearbox trouble.

Verstappen was fighting through the field after his disastrous start and was running ahead of team-mate Sainz as both carved their way past Maldonado and Romain Grosjean. With Verstappen up to eighth place and putting pressure on Sergio Perez for a number of laps, the call came with three laps remaining to switch positions with his team-mate but Verstappen refused and came home eighth behind the Force India.

Felipe Nasr took the final point after some strong closing laps, passing Grosjean when the Frenchman locked up at Turn 7 with three laps remaining and retired his car.

Alexander Rossi enjoyed an impressive grand prix debut as he comfortably beat Manor team-mate Will Stevens to come home in 14th place.

Vettel's win leaves him just eight points behind Nico Rosberg in the drivers' championship, with Hamilton's lead cut to 41 points over his team-mate.

AS IT HAPPENED: Singapore Grand Prix

Click here for some of the most memorable crashes at Singapore

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