Sebastian Vettel steals victory from Charles Leclerc at the Singapore Grand Prix

Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel secured a win at the Singapore Grand Prix after over a year without a victory to his name. He clinched the top spot in controversial fashion, after a race that was mostly decided on pit strategy. His teammate Charles Leclerc and championship leader Lewis Hamilton were two drivers who lost out on the evening's pit battle. However, from a constructor's point of view, Ferrari were the big winners after the first 1-2 finish ever recorded in Singapore.

Pole sitter Charles Leclerc led the race and controlled the pace for the first 20 laps of the Grand Prix. Ferrari decided to call Sebastian Vettel into the pits while he was sitting in third position behind Hamilton's Mercedes. Vettel came out on a clean section of the track and managed to put in a couple of scorching laps. Leclerc was finally called into the pits and was completely shocked to come out on the 21st lap behind Vettel.

Leclerc was left fuming, but there was still a long way to go. Luckily for Ferrari, Mercedes fumbled on their strategy. They decided to let Lewis Hamilton stay out on old tires while the Ferraris were setting faster lap times after their respective pit stops. As this was happening, the team was telling Hamilton's teammate, Valtteri Bottas, to hold back in order to avoid undercutting his teammate.

Unfortunately for Mercedes, Hamilton came out in front of Bottas, but both of them ended up behind both Ferraris as well as Max Verstappen's Red Bull. After the rest of cars made their pit stops, Hamilton ended up losing two track positions after the botched pit strategy. He started out in second and ended up fourth. He could be heard asking his team for answers over the radio, but it seemed that all they could hope for was some advantage from a safety car incident.

The safety car did make an appearance three times after incidents that left the cars of George Russell (Williams), Sergio Perez (Racing Point) and Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa Romeo) stranded on the track. However, the race positions up in front didn't change during the safety car periods. After so many laps behind the safety car, all of the leaders were able to preserve their tyres to make them last until the chequered flag. Hence, no additional pit stops were required.

Leclerc made it clear that he wanted to race Vettel every time the safety car went back in the pits. The team warned him not to do anything stupid and Leclerc acknowledged. Because of the three incidents, there was not much time left to race.

In the end. Leclerc had to settle for 2nd place. In the post race interview, he humbly admitted that despite his personal setback, the undercut gave the team a 1-2 instead of a 1-3 finish.

Here's the complete classification at the end of the Singapore Grand Prix: