Singapore - McLaren-Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton on Sunday made the most of crucial mistakes by his closest rivals to win the Singapore Grand Prix. Germans Nico Rosberg in a Williams and Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel were both given drive-through penalties for pit lane infringements while lying second to allow Hamilton a comfortable victory.
German Timo Glock in a Toyota finished the night race on a street circuit second ahead of Fernando Alonso in a Renault.
The 24-year-old Briton said that the victory was very important to him as he wanted to redeem himself after crashing in Monza two weeks ago.
"I wanted to have a good result and I think I did that.
"Generally the race was pretty straight forward. I was never really under any great pressure and I was looking after the tyres."
He said that the Singapore race was not an easy one. "It is a tough race. The temperatures are very high and there are always corners after corners. You need as much focus as you can get."
The biggest winner though of the race was arguably Hamilton's compatriot Jenson Button, who finished fifth, but held onto his convincing lead at the top of the drivers' standings as his main rivals failed to make any real inroads.
Hamilton, who started from pole, won the start as Vettel dropped one place behind Rosberg on the first lap and stayed in third behind the two leaders until the first drivers started to come into the pits to fuel.
Vettel was the first to come into the pits, closely followed by Rosberg, who managed to come out ahead of his German compatriot, but crossed the white line in doing so and was given a drive-through penalty.
Worse was to follow for Rosberg as Force India's Adrian Sutil collied with BMW-Sauber's Nick Heidfeld as he was trying to pass the Toro Rosso of Jaime Alguersuari, bringing out the safety car.
Race stewards said they would investigate the incident, but for Rosberg, who had to take his drive-through at a time when all the cars were closely bunched together, the damage was done and he came out in 14th.
Upfront Hamilton and Vettel were keeping their distance from the chasing pack and Toyota's Timo Glock, who had moved into third, was unable to close the gap.
Vettel however was penalized for speeding in the pit lane during his second stop and was also given a drive-through penalty, which pushed him down to fourth and gave Glock second place.
The German described his finish as: "A podium at the right time."
Behind Glock Renault's Fernando Alonso, who last season won the Singapore Grand Prix in controversial fashion after his then team- mate Nelson Piquet Jr deliberately crashed to cause a safety car phase, managed to stay in third place.
Earlier this week Renault's former team principal Flavio Briatore was banned from the sport over the incident and the team given a suspended ban from the competition.
Alonso dedicated his podium place to Briatore. "I want to dedicate this podium to Flavio, who is at home. He he is part of the success we had today," the two-time world champion said.
Brawn GP driver Rubens Barrichello, who lost five places on the starting grid after changing his gearbox, made an error of judgement when he decided to pit when the Red Bull of Mark Webber crashed and he expected the safety car to come out again.
However it did not and his team-mate Button managed to come out ahead of the Brazilian after both had completed their final pit stop.
Button finished in fifth ahead of Barrichello and McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen. The final points position went to the BMW of Robert Kubica.
Ahead of the final three races Button continues to lead the championship with 84 points, 15 ahead of Barrichello. The Red Bull duo of Vettel and Mark Webber are third and fourth with 59 and 51.5 points respectively.
