2011 Singapore Grand Prix

Hot and humid

The 2011 Singapore Grand Prix , formally the 2011 Formula 1 SingTel Singapore Grand Prix , was a Formula One motor race that was held on 25 September 2011 at the Marina Bay Street Circuit in Singapore . [ 2 ] It was the fourteenth round of the 2011 Formula One season and the twelfth time the Singapore Grand Prix had been held. The 61-lap race was won by Red Bull Racing 's Sebastian Vettel , the Drivers' Championship leader, after starting from pole position . Jenson Button finished in second pla...

Scuderia Toro Rosso inadvertently broke one of its curfews when team principal Franz Tost arrived at the circuit "too early". [ 7 ] Because the Singapore Grand Prix is a night race, it starts at 10pm local time instead of 2pm as the European races do, meaning that the timetable of events is different for the duration of the Grand Prix weekend. The curfew period is officially defined as the nine hours before the first practice session, and therefore takes up daylight hours at Singapore instead of...

Tyre supplier Pirelli brought its yellow-banded soft compound tyre as the harder "prime" tyre and the red-banded super-soft compound as the softer "option" compound, as opposed to the previous year where Bridgestone brought the medium compound as the prime. [ 11 ]

The first practice session was delayed by half an hour to allow for circuit repairs to take place. Competitors in the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia support races dislodged plastic kerbing on Republic Boulevard and Esplanade Drive, forcing the Grand Prix practice session to be delayed while the offending parts were removed and the circuit deemed safe. [ 13 ] When the circuit was re-opened, the practice session was shortened to one hour instead of the prescribed ninety minutes. Lewis Hamilton finished ...

Repairs to the circuit were carried out before the start of the second practice session with kerbing at Turn 13 removed. When the lights went green, the Lotus mechanics were still trying to rebuild Kovalainen's car. Jenson Button 's session ended prematurely when he locked his brakes and stopped just before the wall at Turn 14, and was unable to restart the car; however, the time he had recorded until then was fast enough to be tenth overall at the end of the session. Sébastien Buemi 's session ...

The second session was red-flagged when Kamui Kobayashi crashed at the Turn 10 chicane. Missing the first apex, his Sauber C30 was launched into the air by the kerb on the second apex, throwing him into the barriers. Qualifying was halted while the car was retrieved and debris from the crash cleared away. Kobayashi's crash meant that he would fail to set a lap time and would start from seventeenth on the grid. When the session was restarted, Vettel once again led the way. Lewis Hamilton attempte...

The third session began with four drivers queueing at the end of pit lane, an unusual sight in Formula One, as they would all be running in the dirty air generated by the cars in front. However, with a full lap of the Marina Bay circuit taking almost two minutes to complete, the drivers would have to race to get back to the pits on their in-lap if they intended to make a second run. Jenson Button led Fernando Alonso , Felipe Massa and Hamilton out of the pits. Hamilton later faced criticism for ...

Sebastian Vettel, who had waited in pit for the queue of cars to clear, once again rose to provisional pole. Jenson Button was second until Hamilton and Mark Webber claimed second in succession. Button took third from Hamilton with his second flying lap, but Hamilton was held in the pits with a fuel problem long enough that he would not have enough time to navigate the circuit and get back to the start line before the chequered flag fell, and he had to settle for fourth. Alonso and Massa were fi...

At the start, Vettel kept his lead into the first corner, while teammate Webber fell to fourth. Hamilton tried to take Webber after a good start for third place, but had to back out and fell to seventh. Button and Alonso's good starts put them into second and third in the race. There was contact between Massa and Rosberg at Turn 1 forcing Rosberg to run straight across Turn 2 and filter in just behind Webber; he conceded the place back to Massa later in the lap. Ricciardo also made contact, forc...

Hamilton attacked immediately on the out lap and made contact with Massa at turn 7. When Hamilton tried to go around the outside of the corner, he turned in clipping his front wing on Massa's tyre, causing both drivers – Massa with a right rear puncture, dropping him down to nineteenth, and Hamilton for a new front wing – to pit again. Hamilton was later given a drive through penalty for causing an avoidable collision. Behind Vettel and Button, di Resta had moved into third, after running a diff...

At the restart, Vettel immediately pulled out a 4-second lead over second placed Button, who was stuck behind a train of backmarkers led by Jarno Trulli. Trulli was lapped by Kobayashi at Turn 1 while Button attempted to get past them. Webber passed Alonso down the inside into the "Singapore Sling" chicane, later describing the manoeuvre as spectacular. [ 15 ] Martin Brundle also described the overtake, as "opportunistic". [ 16 ] Even despite this overtake, Webber was already five seconds behind...

With seven laps to go, Hamilton passed di Resta once again for fifth place, as teammate Button set the race's fastest lap. Massa also managed to get back into the points after his clash with Hamilton, as he passed Barrichello and Pérez to move into ninth. McLaren were still trying to pressure Vettel, and Button closed the gap to under four seconds by the time Vettel had cleared lapped traffic. Unfortunately for him, Button also had to clear this traffic, and just like Vettel, lost around two sec...

This result also meant it was possible for Red Bull Racing to clinch their second successive Constructors' world title in Japan , by scoring 34 points more than McLaren.

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