For the first time in a year Fernando Alonso made his way to the top podium spot once again this evening in the first night race in Formula 1, with a fantastic win that saw fortunes turn for the Spaniard under the floodlit street circuit of Singapore. 

Nico Rosberg stepped up beside Alonso to claim his exceptional second place and Lewis Hamilton completed the trio, finishing in third. 

Alonso, who started 15^th on the grid benefited greatly from the deployment of the safety car that ironically, had come out as a result of a crash by his team mate Nelson Piquet Jr on lap 15. The timing of the safety car, yet again, turned the field upside down. 

Up until that point Massa had comfortably led the race from the first lap. All was going according to plan until the Brazilian went in for his first pit stop where chaos ensued. Massa was released into the pit lane with the fuel hose still attached to his F2008. He continued on down the pit lane with the hose flailing behind him. The Ferrari came to a halt just before the pit lane exit and the pit lane crew had to run down to the car where it took them several seconds to disengage the hose from the car. When Massa finally rejoined the race he was in last place.  

He also incurred a drive through penalty for his unsafe release in to the penalty, just to compound his woes today. 

Alonso had been in 11^th place when the safety car was deployed. A first short stint had failed to get the Renault up through the field. The situation had been an unfortunate one for Alonso who had been doing extremely well throughout the weekend until a fuel feed problem resulted in him going no further than Q2 in qualifying. But his first pit stop on lap 12 ultimately handed Fernando the lead as, after several laps behind the safety car all the other cars then had to come in to pit. 

Rosberg was in danger of running out of fuel on the track under the safety car so he came in to refuel while the pit lane was closed. Even with the ten second stop-go penalty he had to incur he still brought his Williams home just three seconds behind the Renault of Alonso; an impressive race from the young German. 

Hamilton did not benefit from the timing of the safety car and lost out on a few places. For a while he got held up behind the Red Bull of David Coulthard who was running in third. Lewis pulled out a sublime, trademark overtaking manoeuvre on the Scotsman.  

Massa was very much out of contention for a point scoring finish so, once Hamilton was in third place he settled to stay where he was. He was obviously happy to take the six points rather than do anything risky on the off chance he might claim eight points from Rosberg.  

Timo Glock had a great race to finish a solid fourth for Toyota. Sebastian Vettel had another successful race weekend, taking his Toro Rosso over the line in fifth. BMW’s Nick Heidfeld was just behind him in sixth. 

Other beneficiaries of the safety car were David Coulthard for Red Bull Racing and Kazuki Nakajima for Williams who finished seventh and eighth respectively. 

Ferrari had a disastrous day, picking up no points from the Singapore Grand Prix. Kimi Raikkonen had been in fifth place with four laps remaining the Finn crashed in to a wall, thus ending his race. As a result McLaren take the lead of the constructors’ championship.    

View a Printer Friendly version of this Story.

Bookmark or share this story with:

• Digg
• Delicious
• Facebook
• Reddit
• Stumbleupon