In a race where Ferrari or Red Bull were expected to run away with the victory on the Marina Bay Circuit in Singapore, Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton took a superb victory and extended his lead over Sebastian Vettel by another 25 points.
With rain falling at the start of the race, the first time there has been rain at this venue in the ten years it has hosted the event, officials deemed it safe for the cars to take their normal standing start and what a start it was! Sebastian Vettel moved across slightly in an attempt to stop the Red Bull of Max Verstappen from taking the lead, however, what Vettel didn't realize was that his teammate Kimi Raikkonen was coming through on the other side in an attempt to take second from Verstappen.
The end result, Kimi and Max were knocked out, smashing into the McLaren of Fernando Alonso, who had had a brilliant start, on their way across to the other side of the circuit. Then, the damage down to Vettel's car in the incident caught him out a few moments later, taking him out of the race as well. This made history in a way no one wanted. It was the first time in Ferrari's F1 history that both cars retired on the opening lap, and only the fourth time in the history of the sport that the front row was wiped out on the opening lap, the last time being in Spain last year when the two Mercedes came together.
Hamilton, who started fifth on the grid, suddenly found himself in P1 and that's where he stayed for the entire race, that consisted on three safety car interventions, wet weather, intermediate and slick tyres being used and, of course, controversy.
After the start accident, all three drivers blamed each other but in the eyes of the race stewards, it was simply a racing incident.
“The Stewards consider that no driver was found to have been wholly or predominantly to blame for the incident and will therefore take no further action,” read an FIA statement.
Max Verstappen looked at ease in the pits afterwards, but the Ferrari drivers were anything but, especially Vettel who was powerless to do anything but watch as his championship rival extended his lead to 28 points.
It was Hamilton's 60th F1 victory- his third in Singapore, the seventh of the 2017 season and his third in a row. He also completed the fastest lap of the Grand Prix in the first ever wet night race.
Following him home was the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo, who didn't have the blistering pace that the car had shown all weekend due to a gearbox issue. Hamilton could keep the lead with ease over the Aussie driver as a result, a surprise for the Brit who hadn't been able to keep pace with the Red Bull all weekend.
However, after what happened to his teammate and his gearbox issues, Daniel was thrilled to make it home, and on the podium to boot. This is his third year in a row of finishing the Singapore Grand Prix in second place.
"It was enormously frustrating to lose Max at the start of the race, in an incident that quite clearly had nothing to do with him,” Red Bull Racing team boss Christian Horner said. “Sebastian moving to the left, Kimi moving to the right sandwiched Max and there was nowhere for him to go. Then, after the re-start, Daniel started to lose an awful lot of gearbox oil, which created a lot of problems with oil pressure, and we were feeling that it was looking unlikely that Daniel would get to the end of the race.”
Standing on the third step of the rostrum was the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas, his best result in Singapore and his tenth podium of the 2017 season. Starting sixth on the grid, the Finn struggled through the majority of the weekend and only seemed to come alive at the very end, but it was enough to keep his third place and increase his points standing in the championship. He is now only 23 points behind Vettel in third place.
Sunday night's win by Hamilton was the 73rd F1 win for the Silver Arrows One and their ninth of the 2017 season. Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport (475 points) also lead Ferrari (373 points) by 102 points in the Constructors' Championship.
“In the two weeks since the last round of the championship, and in all the hundreds of hours worked and thousands of simulations made, nothing pointed to a result quite like this one,” said Mercedes' James Allison. “Formula One is incredibly complicated, but days like this remind you that it is still a sport - and that you never know what might happen.”
“After a difficult weekend prior to Sunday, the manner in which the cards all fell so right for us in the opening corners gave us a massive lift. But after that huge dose of luck, it was a relief to show that we had good race pace to justify our good fortune, and we couldn't be more delighted with the way Lewis and Valtteri made the most of it. This is a brilliant result for both titles and, of course, we leave Singapore with a spring in our step. But there is still a very long way to go in this championship race.
Further back, Alonso, who had a mighty start, was caught up in the accident at the start and at one stage was flying through the air, but the Spaniard continued on despite his damaged McLaren Honda until, yet again, he complained of no power and the team called him in to retire. However, teammate Stoffel Vandoorne came home 7th to give the team some very valuable points.
Carlos Sainz recorded his best finish of the 2017 season with a fourth place, while his teammate Dani Kvyat's race ended in the barriers. Sergio Perez once again had a good finish in the Singapore GP to come home fifth followed by the Renault of Jolyon Palmer, who secured just his second points finish this season.
Lance Stroll, Romain Grosjean and Esteban Ocon rounded out the top ten with Felipe Massa and Pascal Wehrlein the last two runners.
| Driver | Team | Race time |
| 1. Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 2:03.23.543 |
| 2. Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull | +4.507 |
| 3. Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | +8.800 |
| 4. Carlos Sainz | Toro Rosso | +22.822 |
| 5. Sergio Perez | Force India | +25.359 |
| 6. Jolyon Palmer | Renault | +27.259 |
| 7. Stoffel Vandoorne | McLaren | +30.388 |
| 8. Lance Stroll | Williams | +41.696 |
| 9. Romain Grosjean | Haas | +43.282 |
| 10. Esteban Ocon | Force India | +44.795 |
| 11. Felipe Massa | Williams | +46.536 |
| 12. Pascal Wehrlein | Sauber | +2 laps |
| Kevin Magnussen | Haas | |
| Nico Hulkenberg | Renault | |
| Marcus Ericsson | Sauber | |
| Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso | |
| Fernando Alonso | McLaren | |
| Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | |
| Max Verstappen | Red Bull | |
| Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari |
