The 2013 Singapore Grand Prix (formally known as the 2013 Formula 1 SingTel Singapore Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race that was held on Sunday, 22 September 2013 at 20:00 SST by the Marina Bay Street Circuit in Marina Bay, Singapore. The race was the thirteenth round of the 2013 season, and marked the 6th running of the night race, the Singapore Grand Prix.
Sebastian Vettel took his most dominant victory statistically. He took pole position, led every lap, scored the fastest lap, and won by more than 32.6 seconds; his third Grand Slam. With a nearly perfect start and good handling of the safety car situation, Fernando Alonso took second position from seventh on the grid. Räikkönen, despite a back injury and a start from 13th, climbed up to the final podium position. Nico Rosberg, who started on the front row alongside Vettel, was caught out by a failed tyre strategy to finish fourth while British teammate Lewis Hamilton followed him home for 5th place. Felipe Massa took sixth, over a minute behind the race winner while Jenson Button slipped down the order in the last few laps to finish seventh with Sergio Pérez, Nico Hülkenberg and Adrian Sutil picking up the final points places. The results meant that Vettel again increased his championship lead to 60 points over Fernando Alonso with Lewis Hamilton a further 36 points behind and Kimi Räikkönen two behind Hamilton's total.
Background
The circuit layout was revised for the 2013 race, with the removal of the "Singapore Sling" chicane at Turn 10. The corner was condensed down to a single change in direction, with the large kerbs that had been used to mark the chicane removed entirely.
Tyre supplier Pirelli brought its white-banded medium compound tyre as the harder "prime" tyre and the red-banded supersoft compound tyre as the softer "option" tyre, as opposed to the previous year where soft and supersoft selection were provided.
Qualifying
Pirelli stated that their supersoft tyres are two seconds faster per lap than their medium compound, which meant that the teams had to establish a good tyre strategy for the weekend. Reigning triple world champion Sebastian Vettel took command in the final two practice sessions, while Lewis Hamilton was the fastest man in the first session. Hamilton's teammate Nico Rosberg and Romain Grosjean were also strong contenders for pole position.
Q1
The two Red Bull drivers and Grosjean successfully qualified for the next session with the medium compound tyres, leaving their three sets of supersoft tyres unused for the following two sessions. The two drivers from Caterham and Marussia as well as Pastor Maldonado and Paul di Resta were eliminated during this session.
Q2
The biggest surprise of Q2 was the elimination of Lotus's Kimi Räikkönen. It was later revealed that the Finn suffered from a trapped nerve in his lower back on a quite bumpy circuit. Sauber's Esteban Gutiérrez qualified for Q3 for the first time in his young Formula One career. His teammate Nico Hülkenberg was on pace for a Q3 appearance as well, but the German suffered a DRS issue during his final flying lap, resulting in a Q2 exit. It was the first time this season that Hülkenberg could not out-qualify his teammate. Both Mercedes drivers qualified for Q3 on the set of supersoft tyres they previously used in Q1, which means that they joined Vettel, Grosjean and Mark Webber as the drivers who still had two sets of new supersoft tyres for Q3.
Q3
The five drivers with two unused sets of supersoft tyres went out on track early in the session for a first flying lap. Vettel was by far the fastest man of that group, lapping in 1:42.841, more than six-tenths of a second faster than Rosberg. As a result, the defending world champion elected to stay in the pits, while the others all went on track, either for a first or a second flying lap, except Esteban Gutiérrez, who opted to save his tyres for the race. What seemed to be a guaranteed pole position for Vettel proved to be very uncertain as the German watched Webber posting the fastest first sector time, quickly followed by successive fastest second sector times by Rosberg and Grosjean. Vettel's time still stood by less than a tenth, ahead of Rosberg and Grosjean. Webber took fourth in front of Hamilton. The Ferrari duo could only manage sixth and seventh, with Felipe Massa in front of Fernando Alonso. Jenson Button had to settle for eighth, while the impressive Daniel Ricciardo posted yet another Q3 appearance with ninth. Gutiérrez started in tenth place after not posting a lap time to save his tyres for the race.