Well, who could have predicted the race that we got?
Sebastian Vettel on pole position, Max Verstappen in P2, Daniel Ricciardo P3, Kimi Raikkonen in P4, Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas in P4 and P5 respectively. It was expected to be a foregone conclusion - Vettel makes a bolt for it from lights out and disappears into the distance, then Max and Daniel scrap over the other 2 podium places.
But then the script got misplaced overnight and for the first time in the history of Formula 1, it was a wet night race. The impact this would have on the race could not have been predicted. All the cars went onto wet or intermediate tyres to start the race and we waited for the lights to go out.
Then the carnage began. Immediately off the line, Kimi got a lightning-fast start and came alongside Max. Vettel then tried to close off the threat from Max but this move caused Max to take defensive measures and he made contact with Kimi. From there, it was like a chain reaction - Kimi ran into Max who then struck the side-pod of Vettel resulting in terminal damage to the pole-sitter. Max got speared by Kimi again at the corner and bounced into Alonso's McLaren who had made up positions - including leap-frogging Ricciardo.
Vettel initially appeared to have got away with murder and fled the scene of the crime, but only a couple of corners later, the damage to his car became evident. Fluids were spewing from his Ferrari right into the track of his rear left tyre. This caused him to spin and plough into the wall and officially draw the curtain on his race.
All this - from lights out to the retirement of Vettel - happened in the matter of just seconds. The biggest winner and emerging unscathed from all the mist and flying carbon fiber was Lewis Hamilton. He had gone from P5 to P1 - which was far beyond even his wildest expectations. Ricciardo made up for his poor start by staying out of trouble and taking P2, Bottas up from P6 to P3. Raikkonen, Verstappen, Alonso, Vettel out for a duck.
From there, it was a question of whether (when?) the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton would be caught and passed by Ricciardo in the Red Bull which had been the far superior car the whole weekend.
Surprisingly, Hamilton managed to fend off the challenge and even with the intervention of a number of frustrating safety car periods, the Red Bull threat never emerged. At each race restart, Hamilton managed to expertly peel away from Ricciardo and open a safe gap for himself.
The retirements continued further behind as Daniil Kvyat and Marcus Ericsson crashed out, before Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen retired due to technical problems. 8 cars out in all.
Due to all the interruptions, it was not possible to race the 61 laps so the countdown to the 2-hour time limit started.
In the end, it was comfortable for Hamilton as he took the victory and his lead extended to 28 points in the WDC while Vettel dropped massive points. At the end of the season, this may well be race that will be pointed to as the moment he lost the championship.
Ferrari had come here with a view to punish Mercedes hard as this track heavily favored them. Instead, they leave having been thoroughly crushed by circumstances of their (Vettel's!) own making and are going into races that are heavily leaning towards the power of the Mercedes.
Put an asterisk next to Singapore. This could be the race that we come back to at the end of the season to pinpoint exactly when Sebastian lost the title challenge.
