
Lewis Hamilton prayed for a miracle at the Singapore Grand Prix and it was granted; with a thrilling win under the spotlights of the Marina Bay circuit. Weathering the rain and intense heat, avoiding a shocking crash at the first turn, and skilfully managing three safety cars periods, Lewis earned his seventh victory of the season.
It was epic race day stuff from from the triple World Champion, who had been left mystified after qualifying in fifth place the previous day. However, he held his nerve, maintained solid pace, and did not put a wheel wrong as the Grand Prix went to the full two-hour time limit. His Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport teammate, Valtteri Bottas, also ensured it was a double podium for the Silver Arrows, by taking third place.
Lewis, who now celebrates 60 career wins in F1, said: "God blessed me today for sure! I capitalised on the incident, I mean who would have known that would happen? It couldn't be a more perfect scenario really for us, being that we are at a circuit where we really had not a lot of hope. We really had to just bank on potentially a good start and maybe a bit of strategy, just to get us one or two places forward, so you can't imagine how happy I am."
The drama unfolded on the first lap as Sebastian Vettel tagged Max Verstappen, Kimi Raikkonen, who in turn hit Fernando Alonso. It was an accident that saw all four drivers eliminated with damaged cars; but in turn an incident that also elevated Lewis to the front of the pack. The Silver Arrows racer then set about clocking quicker and quicker lap times on intermediate tyres and was still going faster than his rivals who had switched to the quicker dry-specification tyres. Lewis was simply unstoppable; and now the winning result in Singapore opens up a 28 point lead for him at the top of the drivers' championship table.