2013 Singapore Grand Prix analysis: Where Sunday's race was won and lost

The real question, then, is whether Grosjean would have finished third or second ahead Alonso but for his luckless retirement. A definitive answer is, of course, impossible when pondering any such 'alternative reality' scenario, but two sets of statistics are certainly suggestive: one) excluding Qualy Two, Grosjean had been faster than Alonso in every timed session at Singapore last week; two) at the end of the race, when both cars were finishing their ultra-long stint on the medium tyres, Raikkonen's Lotus was far faster than Alonso's Ferrari, with the E21 on average a second quicker than the F138 on each of the final six laps after passing Jenson Button's McLaren. We'll never know for certain, but had Grosjean has still be on track, second place would surely have been his. Should Mercedes have split their strategies?
It's almost as if the team saw this question coming... According to Merc's post-race press briefing: 'The decisive moment of the race came on lap 25 when the Safety Car was deployed and both drivers stayed out. Pitting would have committed them to a 36-lap stint on a single set of tyres to make the finish. As was seen in the final laps, all but two cars were either forced to pit again or lost significant performance'. Which sounds fairly emphatic. However, let's look at the detail of that final line. The two cars in pertinent reference were those of Raikkonen and Alonso, Mercedes' closest on-track rivals, both of whom finished on the podium ahead of the two W04s. Now couple in the fact that both Nico Hulkenberg and Jenson Button finished in the points after pitting on lap 25, and Mercedes' decision not to hedge their bets and split strategies becomes far less convincing. If Sauber and McLaren both felt they could make it to the finish - which they did, albeit with some very poor lap times on their final tours of the circuit - then shouldn't at least one half of the Mercedes garage have followed suit? Then there's the question of whether Mercedes' management should have insisted on split strategies given that the inflexibility meant both Rosberg and Hamilton were fixed onto an ultra-aggressive strategy whilst occupying the same stretch of road. Split strategies, split the danger? If Mercedes made a mistake, it wasn't merely failing to cover themselves against Raikkonen and Alonso, but also pitting Rosberg and Hamilton into head-to-head combat which could have very easily - and very nearly did - ended with neither driver making it to the line. And a mistake it almost certainly was. "It would have been much better to have brought one car in when the Safety Car was in," lamented Niki Lauda, the team's non-executive chairman, afterwards. "Raikkonen and Alonso did the right thing. It was a strategic mistake - and we won't do it again." Just how far ahead would Sebastian Vettel have been but for the Safety Car?
There has been a lingering feeling after many of Sebastian Vettel's victories this year that the German had been racing well within his and the RB9's limits and for much of the race was holding just a little extra back should he come under sustained attack. That certainly wasn't the case at the end of the Singapore GP after F1's benchmark driver and car combination produced what at times was an astounding show of speed to win by 32.6 seconds. In pure stop-watch terms, not only was it the largest victory margin of Vettel's career but the biggest by any driver in dry conditions for eight years. The chasm between the World Champion and the rest at the chequered flag was all the more ominious given he had already had 13-second lead wiped out when the Safety Car was called out for Daniel Ricciardo's crash on lap 25. Considering a mid-race caution period can often flatter the chasing pack, one question that can justifiably be pondered is just how far into the distance Vettel would have been had he been able to run uninterrupted to the chequered flag. Speaking to Sky F1 after the race, McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh offered a counter position to any suggestions that the Red Bull would have been even further clear by suggesting that circumstances had slightly "flattered" the World Champions on this particular occasion. Indeed, there's certainly a strong case to make that Vettel's winning margin wouldn't have been much, if any, bigger had the Safety Car not appeared at all. How so? Well firstly, and most depressingly of all for Red Bull's rivals, without a caution period there just wouldn't have been any need for Vettel to push at that mesmerising two-seconds-a-lap-faster rate. With no stoppage and a comfortable lead already in place, there would have been no 'free' pitstop for Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen and therefore no outside chance of them throwing a spanner in the works for the World Champion. As it was the Safety Car did complicate things, but having been unable to go with the flying Vettel, Nico Rosberg, Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton all dropped into traffic on their returns to the circuit after their respective second stops, while Vettel's new closest pursuers Alonso and Raikkonen had to preserve their tyres for 36 laps. So, as Whitmarsh suggested, there were certainly circumstances that contributed to the scale of Vettel's win - although not that any of that really changes the lesson of the weekend. Whatever way the cards would have come up, Vettel was simply too fast. Without a Safety Car, his pace may not have had been quite so jaw-dropping as it was, but that would only really have been because it wouldn't have needed to be. Is Max Chilton getting closer to Jules Bianchi?
Having targeted an improvement in his single-lap pace several months ago, Max Chilton has certainly been making tangible progress in closing his Saturday deficit to Jules Bianchi - and Singapore was another step in that process. Over the course of their first eight qualifying sessions in combat (discounting Monaco when Bianchi didn't set a time) the average gap between the two Marussia drivers was a mammoth 0.836s in the Frenchman's favour. However, in the last four races since just before the summer break in Hungary, Chilton has closed that down to a more respectable 0.226s margin. Having held an advantage over Bianchi in Singapore of having driven - and won on - the Marina Bay circuit from GP2 last year, Chilton got closer than ever to his team-mate in Q1, his qualifying lap precisely one tenth of a second slower than the sister Marussia. Sunday's race itself was also had statistical significance as it represented the first time in the 11 occasions both drivers have made the chequered flag that Chilton finished ahead on the road. While the Briton did enjoy some clear good fortune when Bianchi, running two positions and a handful of seconds ahead of his team-mate at the time, lost track position when he was forced to pit on consecutive laps early on after his car got stuck in gear and the team had to change its steering wheel, the Safety Car reset their battle and from there Chilton was generally the quicker of the two on the timesheet. The Briton ultimately finished 7.1s ahead at the flag. Bianchi's fastest lap may have proved fractionally faster - 1:52.898 v 1:53.041 - but Singapore was certainty a weekend that Chilton can look back on with satisfaction.