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By Chia Han Keong
Sebastian Vettel joined Fernando Alonso as the only two-time winners of the SingTel Formula One Singapore Grand Prix last night, retaining the title he won last year.
The defending F1 overall champion won just his second race of the year, but it allowed the Red Bull driver to move up to second in this season's drivers' standings behind Alonso, who leads by 29 points.
Starting from third on the grid, the German made a deft overtaking move, then took full advantage of a luckless Lewis Hamilton to secure the victory.
McLaren's Jenson Button was second, 8.959sec behind Vettel.
Alonso, who started fifth in his Ferrari, finished third to at least reduce the extent to which Vettel cut his overall points lead.
The Spaniard, who won here in 2008 and 2010, gained 15 points to offset Vettel's 25-point gain. The start of the race saw Vettel and Button take advantage of under-steering by Pastor Maldonado, who qualified in second place, to overtake the Williams driver.
Apart from that, there were no major incidents until the 23rd lap, when disaster struck for Hamilton, who began the race in pole position.
Gearbox issues forced the McLaren driver to retire from the race, much to the Briton's frustration and dismay, after he started the race second - behind Alonso - in the overall standings.
The safety car, which was deployed in each of the previous four Singapore GP races, made its appearance in the 34th lap when HRT's Narain Karthikeyan crashed underneath the Floating Platform grandstand.
It was deployed again in the 40th lap, as seven-time F1 champion Michael Schumacher of Mercedes GP rammed into the back of Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne.
Before yesterday's race began, there was a minute's silence for F1 safety pioneer Sid Watkins, who died this month at age 84.
His innovations are credited with helping to keep F1 free of fatal accidents since Ayrton Senna's 1994 crash.
hankeong@sph.com.sg
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