Hamilton fought back from 43 points behind earlier in the season to establish a 19-point lead – only for his Mercedes team-mate Rosberg to clinch his third straight win on Sunday to go eight points clear.
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The safety auto came out nearly immediately in the race due to a spectacular accident in the middle of the pack just after the start.
As predicted, the safety auto came out at the Marina Bay Circuit on the first lap as Sahara Force India driver, Nico Hulkenberg, crashed into the wall after he was sandwiched by the two Toro Rosso cars.
Rosberg led from start to finish, although he was compromised at the end of an early safety auto period when a marshal failed to clear the circuit as racing resumed on the main straight.
“I had to be on it in that last stint and make sure I did everything right”, Rosberg told reporters after topping the podium ahead of Ricciardo and team mate Lewis Hamilton. “It’s never easy in Singapore, hats off to Red Bull for such an awesome attempt to try and get us”. “Once I did my second or third stop we managed to sort it out”.
“In the same way, he drove the race, he had a great start, controlled the race, and on the contrary Lewis didn’t have a clean weekend”. He went for a 3-stop tyre change and with this he overtook Kimi Raikkonen with an undercut after the Finn went into the pits one lap later but was already too late.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff admitted seeing Ricciardo close the gap on Rosberg in the dying stages of the race made for some nervous times in the Silver Arrows garage.
Last year, a lone intruder ambled across the floodlit track midway through the race and then strolled by the metal fences as cars came past. “So it was a really frustrating end for me, especially because all the good work we did on Friday and Saturday counted for nothing”. Daniel tried to pull one on me with the pit stop at the end and I know it was going to be tight but I am really, really happy.
“We have got six races left, so I’ve just got to keep pushing in those six races”.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen had a poor start from P4 and slipped to eighth. “I was still getting warnings to the end but, the last ten laps, I just let them continue flashing as a warning and hoped for the best”.
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Rosberg sits at the top of the driver standings with 273 points, followed by Hamilton on 265 and Ricciardo on 179. I got stuck behind slower cars in front of me and after three or four laps you lose the advantage and it completely destroys the tyres.
