Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel has taken his 33rd career victory at the Singapore Grand Prix, using a two-stop strategy. Vettel’s victory from pole ensures that the Singapore Grand Prix continues its unbroken record of only ever having been won by world champions.

Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso used a different two-stop strategy to finish second from seventh on the grid, while another two-stop strategy was adopted by Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen, who finished third from 13th on the grid – despite suffering from an injured back. Vettel and Alonso have finished first and second now for the last three races.

The Singapore Grand Prix got underway in 67% humidity, with all the drivers apart from Force India’s Adrian Sutil starting on the P Zero Red supersoft tyre. The first driver to head into the pits was Raikkonen, for another set of supersofts on lap 10. Vettel ran a long first stint to build up an advantage of more than 35 seconds before his first pit stop on lap 17 for a set of mediums, emerging back in the lead.

On lap 25 the safety car was deployed for an eventual total of five laps, keeping up another 100% record for the Marina Bay circuit. A number of drivers took advantage of this situation to come into the pits for a tyre change, but the top four (who were all on the medium compound) stayed out, with Vettel’s 13-second lead eliminated.

Nonetheless, the German extended his advantage in order to make a second stop, this time for new supersofts, on lap 44 without losing the lead. This enabled him to eventually win the race by half a minute. With a low pit lane speed limit and a long pit lane in Singapore, there was a considerable time penalty for each stop – the biggest of the year – which meant that teams tried to minimise the time spent in the pits.