2013 Singapore GP: Sebastian Vettel wins at a canter but Safety Car provides late spark

Sebastian Vettel produced one of the most dominant performances of his career to win the Singapore GP at a canter and move yet another step closer to a fourth world title.

The race though belonged to just one man - Sebastian Vettel. Rosberg may have been the German closest challenger for the majority of the day but the pair were effectively in separate races given the World Champion's supreme show of speed under the lights. The Mercedes driver had threatened to make a race of it when he outdragged the pole position on his inside run to the first corner, but blew his chances when he ran wide under braking, allowing Vettel to cut back round the inside of him at Turns Two and Three. And from there the World Champion was gone: within four laps Vettel had established a six-second lead and by the time of Ricciardo's untimely 25-lap accident, it was a thoroughly comfortable 11.3s. But it was the German's speed on the lap-30 restart that truly underlined his supremacy, and current confidence, with the RB9. With Red Bull guarding against the prospect of Alonso's long-running plan coming to fruition, the pit wall gave what is a rare instruction in this day and age of F1 for Vettel to push flat out to really open up an impenetrable gap to the challengers behind. That he managed it was hardly a surprise but it was the 26-year-old's speed that was truly mesmerizing as he pulled away from Rosberg by an astonishing rate of two seconds per lap to the point where he was 14 seconds ahead just six laps after the re-start. "The car was incredible," lauded Vettel on the podium to Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle as he soaked up his 33rd career win, which moves him one ahead of Alonso in sole possession of fourth place in the all-time list. "It doesn't just happen like that by accident or by luck, there's hard work behind it which I appreciate and it's just a pleasure to drive it around this crazy track." Alonso's F138 had appeared to be anything but a pleasure to take around the bumpy track and Alonso admitted that the state of the championship meant that they had no option but to gamble on a 30-plus-lap closing stint in a bid to limit the damage. "It was a risky move but we have nothing to lose," the Spaniard acknowledged. "To finish second in the race or fifth, it doesn't matter too much to be honest. We pushed, we took cars of the tyres, the car was performing really well in the race." "They [Red Bull] were too fast all weekend." Alonso added that the runner-up finish "tastes like a victory for us" and given the unrelenting speed of the Vettel/Red Bull combination, it's hard to see the Spaniard - let alone anyone else - knocking Vettel off his familiar perch before he's surely crowned a quadruple title winner.