Race Report: Fantastic Fernando!!!

What can you say really, Fernando Alonso won the Singapore Grand Prix, an unlikely victory given Renault's year and the two time world champion has been decidedly non-commital about his future. Make no mistake it was a brilliant drive from Alonso and a not so subtle reminder that he is still one of the top drivers in F1. Not only did Alonso remind us of how good he is, Renault also reminded us that they still have the tactical know-how to win races, despite average cars and gutless engines. Alonso's joy was Ferrari's misery as once again they had a race winning car and once again they managed to screw it up so bad so as they end up with no points. Felipe Massa had a comfortable lead but when he pitted behind the safety car it all went to shit as his crew released him while the fuel hose was still attached. This led to some red mechanics being strewn across the pitlane and a drive through penalty for driving out into the path of Adrian Sutil (again). The dramas and resulting penalty left Felipe at the back of the field, to let him get frustrated and cause problems, ironically for Sutil again. Kimi Raikkonen was also delayed by the shenanigans in the Ferrari pits and he was back in the pack. The world champion recovered to run fifth in the closing stages only to screw up and crash on his own. At the front Fernando Alonso pitted early to be rewarded in spectacular fasion on the following lap when his teammate made yet another mistake and stuffed his Renault violently into the wall, bringing out the safety car. Fernando thus stayed out while everyone else pitted, some having to do so while they were closed. At the restart Alonso rocketed away in the lead, aided by some slower cars between him and the main contenders. Fernando looked set for the victory, with a 35 second lead, when the safety car came out once again, this time when Felipe Massa messed up and spun causing some confusion, Felipe himself rejoined, but in doing so got in the way of Sutil, who had to take avoiding action which ended up meaning stuffing it into the tyre wall. With the arse-end of a Force India car in the middle of the track the Safety car was the only option and the field was bunched up again, with ALonso leading the surprising Nico Rosberg and Championship leader Lewis Hamilton. If Lewis could get by Rosberg at the restart then we could have been on for a grandstand finish, but thus was the nature of the track he couldn't and the top three cruised home. Fouth place went to Timo Glock, who was much better than Toyota teammate Jarno Trulli all afternoon and the points were rounded out by Sebastien Vettel, who was the class of the four Red Bull cars and destroyed under-fire teammate Sebastien Bourdais, Nick Heidfeld, who was solid and uspectacular, David COulthard, who reckoned he could have had much more had he not had a fuel rig problem in the pits, and Kaz Nakajima, who was promoted to 8th after Kimi Raikkonen's late race boob.

This result leaves Lewis Hamilton now seven points up on Felipe Massa with just three races to go. If he wins the title this year it will be helped largely bu Ferrari's errors. The Ferrari pit crew were the best in the business for so many years and now they are mistake prone and slow. Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen have not helped matters by making more mistakes than Hamilton, but as a team, Ferrari are struggling to perform consistently. Maybe they need a leader that can rally the troops, maybe they need Fernando Alonso..........