'Huge hit' to Hamilton's hopes after dropping out

FORMULA ONE SINGAPORE GRAND PRIXLEWIS HAMILTON says he has to win the last six races this season if he is to secure his second Formula One world championship – and his forlorn features spoke very little for his chances.

Hamilton’s previously burgeoning title chances received what he described as “a huge hit” yesterday when he dropped out of the Singapore Grand Prix on the 23rd lap. “We have a gearbox failure,” said a McLaren race engineer. “I’m sorry, we did everything we could yesterday [in qualifying].”

It was the curious incident of the race in the night time.

Formula One’s solitary nocturnal adventure had been dominated by Hamilton from pole. He was “cruising” when he experienced difficulty with his gearshift, handing the world champion, Sebastian Vettel, his first win since April.

It dumps Hamilton from second to fourth place, 52 points behind the championship leader, Fernando Alonso, the real winner yesterday. Jenson Button’s second place was little consolation for McLaren, for he trails Alonso by a hopeless 75 points.

Vettel’s victory will revive the faltering hopes within his own Red Bull camp, because it was in 2010 that he came from behind to pip Alonso at the last gasp to take his first title; he is 29 points behind with 150 still up for grabs.

Once again it was Alonso who was left wreathed in smiles at the end, although he was concerned by the lack of pace in his Ferrari.

This was the Spaniard’s 81st podium finish, taking him past Ayrton Senna to third behind Michael Schumacher and Alain Prost in the all-time list. Crucially, every time he looks behind him he sees his closest pursuer – Hamilton in this case – in travail.

This would have been Hamilton’s third win in four races. Instead there is a more damning statistic, for him and McLaren, for this was the fourth time in seven races that he has failed to finish. It was also the fourth time in five events that McLaren have failed to bring both their cars home. That is more retirements than Frank Sinatra.

That does not include the pit-lane fumblings that cost the team, particularly Hamilton, so dearly in the early races of the campaign.

McLaren had the fastest car at the start of the season and they have the fastest car now. But this was always going to be a season won by consistency and they have been found wanting – as Ferrari could gloatingly confirm.

“We had the opportunities at the start of the year and we didn’t take them,” Hamilton said. “Now we’ve had them arriving again and unfortunately other things have intervened. That’s life.

“It’s heartbreaking not to have finished the race today. I was honestly cruising. I started slowing down and Sebastian was still fading away.

“Now I have got to finish ahead of Fernando in every race and get 10 points more than him at every race and that’s what I’ll be trying to do. When I was in second it felt pretty good but now I’m a long, long way behind and it’s going to be difficult to close that gap.

“It has not been a good year for us generally. You can’t afford DNFs and we’ve had far too many. The positives are Jenson was second, we had pace to easily win today, so I can take that positive into the next race, knowing we can attack and hopefully be quicker than the others.”

Before the race, Hamilton had described Alonso as the best of all the drivers and he added last night: “He is without doubt one of the best, if not the best. He’s doing the job, the team’s giving him the car to finish every race and apart from one where he got taken out in Spa, he has finished every race. Just fantastic.”

Despite the distractions posed by Mercedes, who want to sign Hamilton for the next three years, both McLaren and Hamilton had been very strong this weekend, just as they had been in Monza.

Team principal Martin Whitmarsh said: “The fact is we have a quick car, six races to go and 150 points available to every driver. This is a championship that will go down to Brazil. We have had three good races on a roll as a team.”

However the expressions in the McLaren camp were of pure dejection.

It might have been different, at least for Button, if Vettel had been penalised for erratic driving. That would have handed victory to the British driver, who almost drove into the back of the German.

If anyone though had a worse day than Hamilton yesterday, it was Michael Schumacher. He failed to finish for the seventh time this year after driving into the back of Jean-Eric Vergne and will drop 10 grid positions for the next race, in Japan.

Paul di Resta finished fourth in his Force India, the best result of his Formula One career. “It’s been a good weekend for me after qualifying in sixth,” he said.

Guardian Service