[Rohan24]

Guess everyone is missing out Palmer's performance today. P6, in the points and all! After knowing he's going to be replaced. Too little, too late Jolyon!

What a great result for Sainz too.
Mercedes' pace in the race was shocking, compared to the debacle in both practice and Quali! Hamilton was able to pull away every time Ricciardo closed the gap. Even with the safety car killing his lead.
Vettel has only himself to blame. He has surely handed the championship to Hamilton now with that massive error.

[dZired]

Christian Horner has confirmed that there were issues with the gearbox oil level in Ricciardo's Red Bull. This explains why the Aussie wasn't able to give any tough competition to Hamilton, despite getting multiple safety car advantages.

As far as the first lap incident is concerned, Vettel has no one else to blame other than himself. Raikkonen made an amazing start and he did what any racing driver is supposed to do. However, the aggressive maneuver by Vettel to fend-off Max was completely unwarranted. Sad to see the Drivers' Championship inclining towards Hamilton with 6 races still to go. I would have loved to see some close competition till Abu Dhabi.

Disappointed for Alonso as well. He could have finished high in the points in such situations at the low power sensitive circuit.

[sharktale]

Today I learned, be it the highway or the race track, overtaking from the left side is always risky. :P

[vb-saan]

With Max in the front row I was expecting a dramatic start, but did not expect Kimi to be the key contributor to the chaos – just what Mercedes and Lewis wanted, and they fully utilized the chance. It’ll be a tall order for Vettel to fight back for the championship now.

[deetjohn]

Ferrari got him the car for Singapore but Vettel blew it completely. Vettel started the worse off the line, Max did better than the German and Kimi outdid both of them. And they all applied the squeeze in the reverse order. The irony is that whoever got a stellar start under the lights got taken out from the race for no fault of theirs. One example - Alonso.

It was a racing incident, but the biggest loser from it was the man who started it all. He really had a glorious Saturday and undid all that good work right at the start. It was his race to lose and he did just that.

Instead clawing back championship points lead at Singapore, Vettel is now staring at a 28 points gap to Lewis. That gap looks BIG when we look at the remaining 6 rounds. More or less, Lewis on that fast Mercedes got the walk on Ferrari on all but 2 circuits remaining.

1) Malaysia - Advantage: Mercedes
2) Japan - Can't say
3) USA - Advantage: Mercedes
4) Mexico - Advantage: Mercedes
5) Brazil - Can't say
6) Abu Dhabi - Advantage: Mercedes

Here is the highlights:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAOMOmsqpUY

[mayankk]

What a joyous race!!
From utter despondency after Q3, to a feeling akin to winning the pools without entering!!! The blame for the incident may be equally apportionable, but Vettel deserves a bigger portion than the others. That was more aggressive than what usually happens.
Verstappan and Alonso, these two are absolutely blighted!!What do they have to do???

All in, completely entertaining, and a fantastic win for Lewis!!

[PuntoMania]

Vettel has really no one to blame except himself. This is a racing incident, but most definitely a massive error of judgement. He thought he could bully Max and everyone else to his left into yielding, went full on diagonal into his direction and did not anticipate that other drivers will keep their foot on the pedal. Good on the other two for sticking to their lines !

This is the 3rd time in the last 2 years that he has taken out his teammate before the first corner.

China 2016: Made a silly mistake and bumped into Raikkonen, as he didnt' see Kvyat coming through

Spa 2016: Squeezed Raikkonen on the inside and took both Raikkonen and Max with him.

And now this.

Vettel was absolutely being over ambitious and trying to win the race into turn 1. I think the fact that he had to retire sucks for the championship, but is a very fair result considering his irresponsible behavior

[anachronix]

What a heart break for the Tifosi! :|

Anyway, the last time the worst happened like this in Singapore was also when Lewis won his first championship that year in the last corner.

Vettel simply handed the championship back to Lewis on a plate. Have to see how it goes, its not the first time that Vettel has come out of nowhere to win the championship. Going to be a hard battle for him with BIG advantage to Lewis!

[jfxavier]

Originally Posted by anachronix

What a heart break for the Tifosi! :|

Anyway, the last time the worst happened like this in Singapore was also when Lewis won his first championship that year in the last corner.

Vettel simply handed the championship back to Lewis on a plate. Have to see how it goes, its not the first time that Vettel has come out of nowhere to win the championship. Going to be a hard battle for him with BIG advantage to Lewis!

It's the first time ever Ferrari had to retire both cars on the first lap.
Thanks to some brain freeze from their star driver.

Few others got their race spoilt in the process too.
In any case, Singapore maintains the 100% safety car deployment record.

[sgiitk]

Missed the incident where both Ferraris were totalled along with Alonso and a few others. Sad to lose the Prancing Horse. The rest of the race almost became a parade.

[rohitoasis]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

Missed the incident where both Ferraris were totalled along with Alonso and a few others. Sad to lose the Prancing Horse. The rest of the race almost became a parade.

I also nearly missed turning around to take a snack from the packet next to me. It just happened too fast for anyone to assimilate what was happening. The rest of the race did not even warrant the snacks i had consumed.

[Hatari]

What a crazy start! Crazier that Ferrari initially tweeted saying it was Max's fault!
This will be a big blow, on Mercedes' weakest track of the year. They came with high hopes.

But such is racing. Shame it spilt over to Alonso as well.

[GTO]

Vettel started off like an idiot - way too aggressive, I guess because he was afraid of Max' renowned starting skills. Frankly, Max is not even his rival in the championship. I don't understand why he cut Max so sharp. A mistake that has cost him dearly and - I think - the championship. Vettel is now closer to Bottas than Hamilton in terms of points!

Hamilton has the hand of God on his head. 3 fast cars ahead taken out in one accident, he managed to avoid any damage (despite being close) and then, after he takes the lead in the 1st lap, the rain starts to slow down! He drove a flawless race .

I was hoping for the tables to turn and was happy to see Ferraris finally ahead of Mercedes. Vettel ruined the race (& championship?) for us racing fans.

Hamilton's 60th win yesterday. He & Mercedes appear to be an unstoppable force. I think he has a realistic shot at breaking Michael's 91 race win record, especially if he doesn't get a strong team mate (like Rosberg) to share Mercedes victories with.

[greatgyan]

That was really stupid from Vettel. He's fighting for the championship, Lewis is down starting at 5th, even if he finished 2nd, he would have still got a good lead in the championship.

Cutting across like that at the start, specially on 2 drivers who aren't realistically in the championship race was foolish. Specially when you know the kind of aggressive racer that Verstappen is.

Vettel now needs either a similar brain fade moment from Lewis, or a mechanical failure from Mercedes just to get back in this championship, let alone win it.

[sawnilrules]

That move from Sebastian was definitely not warranted for, especially after the kind of efforts he had put during qualifying just an evening earlier. He should have known that the weather was in his favor. As it is, Mercedes cars struggle with downforce, combined that with rains, Mercs could have been easy to fend off. We saw Bottas struggling with the grip and was having downforce issues. The gap between him and Daniel was almost 24 secs at some point in time.

Secondly, neither Max nor Kimi are championship contenders. It just wouldn't have mattered if they would have taken the lead, as taking back the lead from them was a matter of strategy. But then Seb is known to do stupid things on the track. Remember the Baku incident where he just bumped into Hamilton's car for no reason. Even here, he had no reason to behave so absurdly just to close the gap, especially when he could see the drama behind from his rearview mirrors.

Unless now Lewis makes a mistake in any of the remaining races, it looks difficult for Seb to become a 2017 World Champion