Sebastian Vettel won the Singapore Grand Prix which was interrupted twice by the Safety Car – once because a spectator had managed to get onto the track.
The invader caused the second Safety Car period of the race, the first of which came following a collision between Nico Hulkenberg and Felipe Massa.
Vettel made his pit stops under each of the Safety Car periods, Daniel Ricciardo shadowing his every move on his way to second place, following by Kimi Raikkonen.
Nico Rosberg finished fourth after points leader Lewis Hamilton retired with a throttle problem. Valtteri Bottas took fifth place despite being warned about a gearbox problem in the latter stages of the race. A similar problem affected several other drivers including the McLaren pair, who both ran in the points before dropping out.
Daniil Kvyat fell to sixth place after losing out during the first Safety Car period. Sergio Perez took seventh for Force India with the two Toro Rossos close behind him, both of which had been delayed during the race: Max Verstappen failed to get away at the start and Carlos Sainz Jnr’s car went into neutral after one of the Safety Car periods.
Felipe Nasr took the final point for Sauber after both Lotus drivers dropped back in the final stint due to tyre degradation.
2015 Singapore Grand Prix
- 2015 Singapore Grand Prix team radio transcript
- 2015 Singapore Grand Prix Predictions Championship results
- Top ten pictures from the 2015 Singapore Grand Prix
- Vote for your 2015 Singapore Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend
- Vettel passes Senna before Hamilton reaches him
Alex Ward
20th September 2015, 15:29
When i saw the guy ontrack, I thought Barrichello would win….
RogerA
20th September 2015, 15:37
Something I really don’t like about Lewis is how whenever anything goes wrong & he falls back he immediately starts calling to retire the car.
You don’t hear other drivers so eager to retire the car when they hit trouble because they don’t give in as easily.
Simon (@weeniebeenie)
20th September 2015, 15:39
It depends entirely on the context. He was the one driving the car, he knew it was getting worse and as he said in the Sky interview, once a Marussia passes you and pulls away you know it’s game over. They couldn’t fix it, they tried everything they could.
medman (@medman)
20th September 2015, 16:36
Exactly. No use burning down the engine or gearbox when the writing is on the wall.
f12007v (@f1fan-2000)
20th September 2015, 15:40
Like spa last year he was running with the problem for a long time but nothing can be fixed so that’s the right thing to do. He was already behind the manors at that point so…
iFelix (@ifelix)
20th September 2015, 16:02
I am not a Lewis fan by any means but he was thinking strategically. This battle was already lost and he might have salvaged a couple of points at best even if they could revive the car.
However by saving the engine he would have a better shot at winning next ones, esp. He had enough of point cushion
lethalnz
20th September 2015, 16:34
interesting how the guy came on track right when Vettel needed to pit,
was Merc going to pit or run on that set of tires to the end? i know Rosberg changed his tire but could have gone the distance without?
it totally stuffed up the race, man on track and Lewis out.
there was only a 20sec gap back to Rosberg and 16sec gap for Hamilton so they would have taken up 1st & 2nd then it would have been interesting, old tires on a hard to pass track..
but the man walking stuffed it all up, maybe was payed by Ferrari to bring the safety car out so this scenario could not happen…
ireni
20th September 2015, 17:48
I think you should need to rewatch the race man….
Fudge Ahmed (@)
20th September 2015, 16:47
It’s called perception of the rules. The others are in it for 1 shot glory no matter the cost or potential for increasing mileage on a stricken engine. Hamilton has his eyes on a world championship so he was completely correct to limit the risk of that.
Jules Winfield (@jules-winfield)
20th September 2015, 17:16
He was in 15th/16th place and the problem was only getting worse, according to Lewis. Everything he tried and the team suggested didn’t work.
What point was there in continuing? Why risk damaging something unnecessarily?
emuLOAD
20th September 2015, 17:47
There comes a point where driving doesn’t make sense. It’s a Dangerous, trying track a week before the next race. It was more than obvious they could not do anything to fix the car, and even if they did, by the point he retired, he was so badly behind not even a safety car would have let him recover a top spot.
The problem was pretty clearly too big, risking a crash was somehow a better choice?
ireni
20th September 2015, 17:49
I would normally argue against what you are saying. But now I remembered some past races….
Simon (@weeniebeenie)
20th September 2015, 15:37
How many laps was that second safety car out for? Seemed like an eternity when the guy had already climbed back off the track pretty much before the safety car was on track. I get the need to make sure he’s not going to get back on again but it was way too long. As was the mess of the first one, with the VSC for so long, then the real SC for even longer.
David Not Coulthard (@davidnotcoulthard)
20th September 2015, 15:50
@weeniebeenie They were waiting for Rossi……..and eventually gave up on that.
Melvin (@)
20th September 2015, 16:32
both manors had no radio i think. thats a though rookie race.
anon
20th September 2015, 17:46
The first one, they tried to clear Hulkenberg’s car with just the VSC, but there was too much debris so they put out the safety car to bunch up the field while the track was swept.
The second one , Rossi had lost his radio and so didn’t get the message to overtake the leaders and unlap himself, once Manor told race control this they restarted the race with the Manors still mixed in with the unlapped cars.
hahostolze
20th September 2015, 15:47
Franz Tost has now admitted that Verstappen was right to ignore the call, STR made an error in judgement and thought Sainz would be much faster on the final stint and he wasn’t.
Right, now that I have got that out of the way, I can go back to fawning over Verstappen and daydreaming about how he would have finished fifth or maybe even fourth here today if he hadn’t made the rookie mistake of stalling.
CountryGent (@countrygent)
20th September 2015, 16:03
Oh Lord, please don’t buy me a Meeerceeedes-Benz…
But in all seriousness, this is why so many of us watch F1. Mercedes have dominated across the bumps and curbs of Monaco for the past three years, and won this race last year with similar aplomb. But instead of a silver whitewash, Ferrari, for the first time since Monza 2010, fielded the best package. The unpredictable had developed a habit of avoiding F1 in 2015, but not this weekend.
If, as some are arguing, this performance from Ferrari is not purely an off-colour weekend from Mercedes but aided by a PU update, then Marchionne’s remarks about Ferrari being realistic contenders in 2016 may start to appear credible. Not a great day to be the Scuderia’s former hero, having retired yet again.
George (@george)
20th September 2015, 17:55
That makes no sense, considering they were barely faster than Red Bull (pretty much as it’s been all year). Merc were just about 2sec off their normal pace here for whatever reason.
Colin (@kairat)
20th September 2015, 16:24
Classy, clever drive from Vettel. Good drive from Ricciardo. Classy podium.
medman (@medman)
20th September 2015, 16:41
So the podium consists of the top three qualifiers….how is that classy? Do you say the same when it’s the Mercs sitting in one, two every race, after qualifying up front? Strange…….
emuLOAD
20th September 2015, 17:50
Well, classy doesn’t mean shocking. But it wasn’t a flat race, with all those safety cars. Overall, quite tense to the end.
miky
20th September 2015, 17:53
Yeah Vettel-Ricciardo was an interesting battle. Vettel had the pace but Ricciardo had better deg. It was amusing to watch. Especially how Vettel went about it in 2nd super soft stint after the end of 1st one.
chow
20th September 2015, 16:28
FA is a great driver, but his recent comment on ferrari is like sour grapes.
Corrado (@)
20th September 2015, 20:20
Link, please!
Yeah, whatever he says to the public, I’m pretty sure deep inside he feels sorry for leaving Ferrari before his contract expired. I know he wants to win champs, but winning races is like the 1st condition to winning champs. Plus, no matter what he says, finishing on the podium almost every race is waaaaay better/satisfactory than retiring once every 2 races, and when he finishes the race, most of the time he’s out of points. At the moment, it looks like 1 of the worst moves in F1 history given the caliber of Alonso corelated with the potential of the team.
JohnnyRye
20th September 2015, 16:42
The one thing that didn’t get brought up in the broadcast and wasn’t investigated by the stewards was the pass on Grosjean by Sainz.
I hate track limits rules taking away from a great pass but in the one place Charlie Whiting had a clear rule about it they failed to enforce it. Carlos made a great move but forced Grosjean off track (Grosjean went out and around the marker as required), but Sainz also went “4 off” and didn’t stay within the white line.
If there is a rule, enforce it. Just because it was a great pass doesn’t (or shouldn’t) exempt you from enforcement. This rule received serious attention a few years back when Grosjean made an even better pass on Massa around the outside at Hungary but went outside the lines (barely) and got penalized. Surely forcing someone off track and still going outside the lines is worse?
I must be missing something. Nothing against Sainz or any driver in particular, more against the stewards for having rules and not enforcing them.
Jere (@jerejj)
20th September 2020, 7:22
@JohnnyRye It’s about having at least two wheels on the curbing, that is the reference point the FIA generally uses for track limits rather than the white lines.
AntoineDeParis (@antoine-de-paris)
20th September 2015, 17:59
Seb Maestro, massive drive.
alex
21st September 2015, 10:05
Amazing Seb!