Kimi Raikkonen finished the Singapore Grand Prix in tenth place, while his Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro team-mate, Giancarlo Fisichella came home in thirteenth place. Having qualified in 12th and 17th places respectively, there was never a realistic chance of a great result on a street circuit, where overtaking is virtually impossible. Even the inevitable intervention of a Safety Car did nothing to improve the Scuderia duo’s situation.

Lewis Hamilton led from pole and went on to win, which means that his McLaren team are now a mere three points behind us in the battle for third place in the championship, as the first two positions have been locked out by Brawn and Red Bull for a long time now. Joining the reigning world champion on the podium, was Timo Glock second for Toyota and Fernando Alonso third for Renault. Against the most unique and spectacular night time backdrop of Singapore, Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro’s Kimi Raikkonen lined up on row 6 of the grid in twelfth spot, with Giancarlo Fisichella on the penultimate row in seventeenth place. Nick Heidfeld would start from pit lane in the BMW.

As the lights went out to start the fourteenth round of the World Championship, with a heat haze rising from the cars, Hamilton shot into the lead from pole and Rosberg immediately went to second, passing Vettel, who then had to fight off Alonso who got alongside the Red Bull in his Renault but not enough to get past. Webber maintained his grid place of fourth. Kimi dropped a place to thirteenth, while Giancarlo moved up one to 16th in the F60, both Ferraris getting pushed wide and bogged down in traffic. Grosjean was the first retirement, bringing his Renault into the pits on lap 3.

With lap times slower than last year – leader Hamilton had done a 1.49.172 at this stage – the race was going to go very close to the two hour limit, which in the heat and humidity would be a real test of man and machine.

On lap 5, Hamilton led from Rosberg, Vettel, Webber, Glock, Alonso, Barrichello, Kubica, Kovalainen, Button, Nakajima, Buemi, Raikkonen, Alguersuari, Sutil, Fisichella, Liuzzi, Trulli and Heidfeld. One lap later, the order changed as Glock and Alonso both got past Webber, who thus dropped to sixth. Kimi was two seconds behind twelfth man Buemi and Giancarlo was 2.4 adrift of Sutil. Although his engineer told him to disable the faulty KERS on the McLaren, Hamilton was still the fastest man on track, exploiting the advantage of having no one ahead of him. After 10 laps, Kimi’s times began to match those of Buemi ahead of him and the gap began to come down between them and on lap 11, the Finn got by comfortably to go twelfth. In 14th place, Alguersuari was slowing those behind, so that Sutil was just 0.6 behind him, with Giancarlo a further 0.6 behind, but coming under pressure from Liuzzi.

Lap 14 and Hamilton led Rosberg by 3 seconds, with Vettel 1.7 down on the Williams. Then came a big gap to fourth placed Glock, who had 5 seconds in hand over Alonso. The rest of the top ten had Webber in sixth, followed by Barrichello, Kubica, Kovalainen and Button. Vettel was the first to pit, coming in on lap 17, dropping from third to seventh, with Rosberg bringing the Williams in from second one lap later. Webber also came in at the same time from seventh, followed in by Giancarlo and Liuzzi. Glock who had moved up to second refuelled the Toyota on lap 19, with leader Hamilton in on lap 20.

The inevitable safety car now appeared, after Sutil tried to pass Alguersuari, which spun the Force India round, then collecting the BMW of Heidfeld. Naturally, this prompted a rush for the pits, as this was the window for most drivers’ first stop, including Kimi. Alguersuari tried to drive away with his fuel line still attached, knocking over a Toro Rosso refueller, but then got away again without further incident. The entire field had now made their first refuelling stop and were still running behind the SC on lap 24, when the order was Hamilton, Rosberg, Vettel, Glock, Alonso, Barrichello, Kovalainen, Button, Webber, Kubica, Nakajima, Kimi (12) Buemi, Trulli, Giancarlo (15,) Liuzzi, Alguersuari 17th and last as Sutil retired in the pit.

The SC came in to pit lane at the end of lap 25 and after such a long period tyres and brakes would have cooled significantly, providing less grip and braking. The entire field was back within ten seconds, from Hamilton to Alguersuari. Rosberg in second place was due to take a drive through for crossing the white line at the pit lane exit. The German came in for it on lap 27. The battle at the front was hotting up, as Vettel chased down Hamilton, the gap being 0.8 on lap 29. In third, Glock was a further 4.1 behind. In eleventh place, Kimi trailed Nakajima by 1.9 and had Buemi 1.0 behind, while in 15th, Giancarlo was 3.9 behind Rosberg, with Liuzzi 0.8 behind.

In 14th, Rosberg started the second run of stops on lap 34. Lap 37 and the lead battle was hotting up as Vettel was now just half a second off Hamilton. Fisichella moved up to 13th when Buemi refuelled on lap 38. Vettel pitted on lap 39 from second, while Buemi came in again as no fuel had gone in the car at the first stop. Vettel however was given a drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane, which he took on lap 43. At this point, Kimi was tenth and Giancarlo 13th. Webber refuelled from ninth on lap 44, a long stop because of a problem with the right front wheel. The next lap saw Glock refuel his Toyota, which dropped him from second to sixth. Lap 45 and Webber put his car in the wall at Turn 3, as the leader Hamilton made his second stop. Kovalainen, Barrichello and Nakajima also refuelled as did Giancarlo. Alonso yet to make a second stop now led from Hamilton and Button, the Englishman also yet to refuel.

Kimi made his second stop on lap 52 and was tenth on lap 54. Out in front, Hamilton appeared to be heading for the win, his McLaren 7.1 ahead of the Toyota of Glock, with Alonso occupying the final podium position. As for the rest of the points places, Vettel was fourth, leading Button, Barrichello, Kovalainen and Kubica. With five laps remaining, Kimi was closing on Nakajima in ninth, but Kubica in the last points position was a further second ahead of the Japanese driver. The positions remained unchanged, with Ferrari thus ending a run of ten races in the points. Now there are just a few days, before the Scuderia has a chance to do better at Suzuka; a circuit where both it and its two drivers have a good track record.

Stefano Domenicali: “Honestly, I don’t think we could have done much better. When you start this far back on a track like this, it’s difficult to climb up the order. Kimi and Giancarlo did their best, trying to exploit what their cars had to offer. We have to accept the fact that many other teams have made yet another step forward in terms of performance, which makes our technical situation even more difficult, given that development on the F60 stopped a while ago now. When we took that decision, we knew we would pay for it more and more as the end of the season approached, but let’s be clear on one thing, we are not giving up: there are still three races to go and we will tackle them with maximum effort because we want to do all we can to finish third in the Constructors’ classification. In a strange season like this one, anything can happen. Again today, for example, we saw teams that used to be a long way back, now at the front end, while others did the opposite.”

Kimi Raikkonen: “I couldn’t do any better. The car was sliding everywhere and I had no grip. In the final part, with the softer tyres, the situation improved a bit, but by then it was too late. I closed up to Nakajima and, a few times, I tried to risk a passing move, but here it’s really difficult to overtake unless the guy in front makes a mistake. I don’t expect the situation to be much different next week in Suzuka: it is a very demanding track for the car, from an aerodynamic point of view and we are lacking in this area. Having said that, I will be trying my hardest.”

Giancarlo Fisichella: “It was a very tough race, both physically and mentally. The pace was not up to Ferrari’s standard and we have to take that on board. I was struggling to keep the car on track because of a lack of grip. At the end, on the softer tyre, the car’s handling improved and I managed to do some good lap times. We brought my first pit stop forward to try and get me out of traffic, given that I was stuck behind Sutil, but then with the safety car the move didn’t give the result we’d hoped for. Here, KERS was less of a factor than at Monza: at the start I managed to pass a car and then it was mainly useful to defend my position. Now we go to Suzuka, a real track: given how things have gone this year, with cars being strong in one race and weak the next, it’s difficult to make any predictions.”

Chris Dyer: “It was a very difficult race, for both Kimi and Giancarlo. Contrary to what has happened in recent races, we were unable to make the most of the start, which has been one of our strong points this year. We were already a long way back on the grid and so our situation was immediately more complicated, especially as overtaking is virtually impossible here. Today, several cars failed to finish, or were struggling with brake problems, but we were not able to exploit that to make it at least into the points. As for the tyre performance, the softer compound, in the final part of the race proved to be better than expected in terms of consistency, but it was not clear enough to decide to use it as from the second stint, which was the longest one. It’s easy to say things after the event, but I do really think we made the right choice.”

Source  - Ferrari Media