When Lewis Hamilton has half a shout at a win, more often than not he produces, and this weekend he won his second race of the season.
An utterly dominant weekend from the reigning world champion, the circuit suited the Mclaren beautifully, no high speed corners, and very many slow 2nd and 3rd gear right angles.
Hamilton took the pole on saturday before Barrichello smashed his Brawn in the wall and brought out the red flag, many drivers were on their hot lap at the time and had it ruined. Would Vettel or someone else have been on pole? who knows.
It was Hamilton from Vettel and Rosberg, and at the start Rosberg got the jump on Vettel and hustled Hamilton throughout, the Williams having its best weekend of the year. Rosberg would have finished on the podium but he got it all wrong coming out of the pit lane and crossed the white line.
The german has been perennially unlucky this season and the curse continued when the safety car came out for Sutil and Heidfeld's altercation which meant Rosberg couldnt complete his drive through until after the Safety car went back in. Without the safety car Rosberg would still most likely have finished on the podium.
So Nico's day was done.
Vettel too, could have won this race, but for a misdemeanor with the pitlane, somehow the Red Bull shortened the entry to the pits and thus the FIA judged that he must have been speeding.
Red Bull telemetry lated showed Vettel did not speed at all.
The resulting drive through dropped Vettel to 4th, and he ended up 17s behind Hamilton, despite a 20s penalty. Just where would Vettel have been but for the pit lane issue? Crucial world championship points were again lost.
And so Timo Glock picked up 2nd place with a brilliant drive, Toyota's rarely do well on street circuits but Glock was superb, especially when you compare his result to team mate Trulli who struggled to enter the top 10.
Third ironically, went to Fernando Alonso, for the second year in a row he was on the Singapore podium, no cheating this time though, just Alonso at his "im going to get everything and then some out of this car" best.
4th was Vettel, just ahead of Button and Barrichello, Button was helped by the safety car and reckoned he had no more than half a laps worth of brakes in the car. Thin Line JB, thin line. Not a bad result however when you remember he qualified 12th.
Rubens will be annoyed to have finished behind his team mate despite starting ahead of him, but neither Brawn was really on it this weekend, Button had a few good laps just before his pitstop to jump Barrichello and Kovalainen, but a few good laps in a race of 61 laps is not enough.
Kovalainen was again outclassed by Hamilton and must surely be on his way out of the team next year, while Kubica edged out Nakajima Raikkonen and the recovering Rosberg for the final point.
A farily entertaining race, but few changes with regards to the world championship, Mark Webbers hopes are officially gone after crashing out with brake failure long before the chequered flag.
Hamilton again showed why he is the world champion, and Glock reminded the paddock just what he is capable of.
As for Brawn, it still just does not make much sense, so consistent and fast in the first half of the season, now struggling to make the points. Button is making the best of a bad job, but really, he shouldnt be making a bad job in the first place.
Rubens is only fairing slightly better, and as for Vettel, his year is littered with errors. Whoever wins this championship, how will they be remembered and thought of by fans and those involved with the sport? Will people feel they have earned the title Formula One World Champion 2009?
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