Sebastian Vettel has thanked his team for all of their hard work and efforts after dominating the Singapore Grand Prix to win the race by over thirty seconds from Fernando Alonso.
Vettel went wire-to-wire at the Marina Bay Street Circuit as well as setting the fastest lap, but a poor start and a safety car period midway through the race very nearly scuppered the German’s hopes of winning a third consecutive grand prix in Singapore. However, the pace of the car meant that Vettel could control the race from the front, and he attributed this luxury to the hard work that the team has put in.
“It doesn’t happen just like that, it’s surely not easy to get everything right all weekend,” Vettel said. “I’m extremely happy though I think we can all be extremely proud. I know how much work is going in. There’s a lot of team effort going in and if we have results like today where we have the luxury to control the race then it’s because of the late hours and commitment that goes in from everybody.”
However, a poor start from Vettel meant that Nico Rosberg made his way into the lead at turn one, but the Mercedes driver could not hold the position heading through the second corner, allowing the defending world champion back into a lead that he never lost.
“The lights went off, I thought I reacted pretty well but it was a bit lazy to get off the line,” Vettel admitted. “I thought that Nico might still be there and he was side-by-side, so I had to give him room. Fortunately he was braking quite deep into turn one and I was able to come back on the inside to get the position, fortunately the next corner was a left hander so I got in front and from there obviously we had a very very strong pace.”
Having established a sizeable lead, Vettel lost the gap under the safety car following Daniel Ricciardo’s crash into the wall at turn seventeen. Despite this setback, the German driver believes that it did not hamper Red Bull too greatly.
“The safety car didn’t help but also I think didn’t hurt us in the very end obviously we had a new set of super-softs compared to those guys that were on very old primes, so by then we could control the race.”
Vettel has extended his championship lead to sixty points with this win, with closest-rival Fernando Alonso finishing second to the German driver in each of the past three grands prix.
