Red Bull rises in Singapore

Sebastian Vettel claimed his second successive victory at the Singapore Grand Prix for Red Bull Renault, setting fire to his chase for a third drivers’ title.

Red Bull Racing’s boss Christian Horner calls it “a turning point in the championship.”

Pole position man Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren Mercedes retired with a gearbox problem on lap 23, handing the lead to Vettel. Hamilton’s teammate, Jenson Button, took second place. Two-time Singapore GP winner and current championship leader Fernando Alonso took third place.

The action-packed race finally breached the two-hour time limit of Formula One races, with the race running two laps less than the scheduled 61 laps. A retirement from Narain Karthikeyan, with his car parked in the stadium tunnel, brought out the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG safety car for the first time this year. The Singapore night race is infamous for seeing some safety car action every single year of its running since 2008. At the restart, Jenson Button nearly plowed into the back of Vettel’s Red Bull as Vettel sped up then suddenly slowed down. The other German World Champion, Michael Schumacher, had a troublesome night, as he slammed into the back of Jean-Eric Vergne’s Toro Rosso near the Connaught Grandstand. The incident happened to be at least partly a driver error; Schumacher was handed a ten-place grid penalty for the next race in Japan for the incident.

The organizers of the Singapore Grand Prix have exercised their option to run the race in the city state for a further five years, until 2017. The Grand Prix has been a runaway success, for Formula One and for the city. Running the race at night gives the F1 cars a surreal glow as they flick by under the floodlights. Singapore GP counts more than 200,000 attendees every year, while the TV audience from 2008 to 2011 has averaged almost 100 million.

Singapore also pioneered the pairing of after-racing entertainment acts that are arguably just as powerful as the cars running on the track. Since its inception, the Singapore race has hosted such acts as the Black Eyed Peas, Linkin’ Park, Mariah Carey, Rick Astley, Boy George and, this year, the powerhouse combination of Maroon 5 and Katy Perry. Katy Perry provided the climax of this year’s entertainment lineup, as she took to the Padang stage in a race-inspired checkered suit. More than 50,000 spectators watched her belt out songs like “Firework,” “Hot n Cold,” and “California Gurls.”

The Singapore GP sets the stage for a nail-biting finish to the season. Fernando Alonso leads Sebastian Vettel by just 29 points, with Kimi Raikkonen in third needing 45 points to catch up, and Lewis Hamilton still in the title chase 52 points behind the leader.