Hamilton WINS the Singapore Grand Prix!

Lewis Hamilton has hung unto his first place to win the Singapore Grand Prix, improving his championship lead on Sebastian Vettel who finished in third, to 40 points.

The race started with a bang, although it wasn't at the front like last year. Esteban Ocon was side by side with his teammate Sergio Perez, but got squeezed into the wall by the Mexican, totalling his car in the process. The safety car came out for four laps.

Sebastian Vettel did very well to overtake Max Verstappen in second right before that yellow flag, overtaking the Dutchman on the first straight. 

Hamilton pulled away when the safety car came back in, showing some unexpectedly great race pace. He came in after a short stint on the hypersofts and changed to softs, and Vettel changed to ultrasofts. The Ferrari strategy was definitely worse, as Vettel got stuck behind Sergio Perez, and Verstappen then re-took second after he pitted for softs. Vettel just wasn't getting closer to Verstappen or Hamilton, despite being on softer compounds.

The middle portion of the race is where things got exciting again. When Hamilton first hit traffic, he got slowed down a lot. Verstappen was gaining several seconds a lap and eventually was right behind him, while the duo was passing Sergey Sirotkin and Romain Grosjean, who were in a battle themselves. They forgot to let Hamilton and Verstappen past, meaning Hamilton could escape when he did get past. He went from having Max right on his tail to having a four-second lead again. Grosjean got a five-second penalty, and so did Sirotkin later for squeezing off Hartley

Perez got a drive-through for ramming Sirotkin, which was very cynical from the Mexican, and the second collision of the race he caused. In terms of entertainment, Perez and Sirotkin did an amazing job, but they finished in the last two places.

In the end, Verstappen settled for second, Hamilton took the win, and Vettel couldn't get any closer on his worn ultra softs. A race that was very high in terms of entertainment value, despite the starting top six not changing. 40 points between Hamilton and Vettel now, which looks to be too much to come back from.

Fernando Alonso deserves a mention, though, as the Spaniard sped his way up to seventh place from P11, even setting the fastest lap of the race mid-way through the race. He's up to P8 in the championship, and surely is the driver of the day!