Hamilton reclaims F1 points lead with Singapore GP win

Singapore (SportsNetwork.com) - Lewis Hamilton overtook his Mercedes teammate, Nico Rosberg, for the lead in the Formula One world championship point standings by winning Sunday's Singapore Grand Prix.

Rosberg, who entered this race with a 22-point advantage over Hamilton, was forced to retire early due to an electrical problem. He completed just 13 laps.

Following his seventh win of the season, Hamilton holds a three-point lead over Rosberg (241-238). Five grand prix remain. F1 will be in Japan in two weeks.

"A huge thanks to my team, and what they've done this year has been absolutely incredible," Hamilton said. "To arrive here knowing that we had a car that we could fight with and just the feeling I had throughout the race, I couldn't do it without the team."

Hamilton started on pole and dominated this 60-lap race at Marina Bay Street Circuit. The event was scheduled for 61 laps, but a lengthy safety car period for an incident involving Force India's Sergio Perez and Sauber's Adrian Sutil forced it to end in a two-hour time limit.

When Hamilton had to pit with eight laps remaining, Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel moved into the lead. But Hamilton, with fresh tires, quickly chased down Vettel and passed him for the top spot with seven laps to go.

"Before we last pitted, I didn't really know what the situation was, but I knew that I had a really big gap (on Vettel), and I was thinking if the safety car comes out, what does that mean," Hamilton said. "But when I came in, I knew that I had a chance to fight the guys that were still on old tires and get by them."

Hamilton went on to beat Vettel to the finish line by 13.5 seconds. It was the 29th career F1 grand prix win for Hamilton, including his second in Singapore. He won this race from the pole in 2009 when he drove for McLaren.

Rosberg, who had qualified second for this event, just 0.007 seconds behind Hamilton, had to start from pit lane after he experienced the electrical glitch on his car just before the parade lap began. His steering wheel was not functioning properly, as the only thing working on it was the gear shift paddles.

"The steering wheel didn't work, and so the whole car wasn't working," Rosberg said. "We need to find out what it was, because it was a reliability problem. We've had quite a few this year, and that's our weakness. We really need to get to the bottom of these things and make the car 100 percent reliable."

When Rosberg pitted on lap 15, he could not get his car back into gear. His Mercedes team then decided to retire the car. It's just the second time this season that Rosberg was forced to retire. He did not finish the July 6 British Grand Prix, which was won by Hamilton.

"It was very tough in the way in which it all happened, not even leaving the grid," Rosberg added. "It was not good."

Vettel, the four-time F1 world champion and winner of the last three Singapore GPs, finished a season-best second. It was also his first podium finish since placing third in the June 8 Canadian Grand Prix.

"It's a circuit that I really enjoy and really like," Vettel said of this racing circuit in Singapore. "It's a tough race. It's two hours long. I had a good start. We had a decent race and had a good strategy, but the safety car came at the worst possible moment for us."

Daniel Ricciardo, who is Vettel's teammate, finished third. Ricciardo, a three-time race winner this season, is now 60 points out of the lead.

"To get on the podium is not a bad result," Ricciardo said. "At least we got some points."

Fernando Alonso from Ferrari placed fourth, while Williams driver Felipe Massa took the fifth spot. Jean-Eric Vergne from Toro Rosso was sixth.

The safety car period began on lap 31 after Perez lost his front wing. Debris from his wing littered the track. He had bumped into the back of Sutil. Perez, though, bounced back with a seventh-place finish.

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen finished eighth, followed by Nico Hulkenberg from Force India and McLaren's Kevin Magnussen.