The 2015 Singapore Grand Prix (formally known as the 2015 Formula 1 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on 20 September 2015 at the Marina Bay Street Circuit in Marina Bay, Singapore. The race was the thirteenth round of the season. It was the eighth time the race was run as a round of the Formula One World Championship.
Defending race winner Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes entered as the leader in the World Drivers' Championship with 252 points, 53 points ahead of teammate Nico Rosberg and 74 points ahead of Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel. Mercedes came into the race leading the Constructors' Championship by 181 points ahead of Ferrari, with Williams a further 82 points back in third place.
Vettel won the race from pole position, ahead of Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo in second and Vettel's Ferrari teammate Kimi Räikkönen in third. The Mercedes team struggled at Singapore; Lewis Hamilton recorded his first retirement of the season, while Nico Rosberg managed only fourth place, closing the gap in the championship to 41 points.
This is the only Grand Prix in the 2015 season where Mercedes did not secure a pole position, with their drivers qualifying fifth and sixth.
Report
Background Coming to Singapore, Nico Rosberg was forced to change his power unit after his engine failure at the previous race in Italy. Using his fourth unit of the season, Rosberg was one power unit change away from a possible grid penalty. Alexander Rossi made his Formula One debut after signing a five-race deal to replace Roberto Merhi at Manor Marussia. Acting as race stewards at the Grand Prix were Garry Connelly from Australia and Vincenzo Spano from Venezuela, who assisted driver steward Martin Donnelly in his first appearance in this position since the 2014 Malaysian Grand Prix. Sauber brought a "heavily-updated car" to the Grand Prix, featuring a shorter nose and revised front and rear wings as well as a new engine cover and brake ducts. Toro Rosso also came to Singapore with new parts, bringing a revised front wing. Red Bull introduced a new component as well: Daniil Kvyat's car was equipped with new turning vanes installed to improve the airflow under the car and therefore create more downforce. The feature would be run by both cars at the following Japanese Grand Prix. Further updates included changes to the diffuser, rear wing, brake ducts and bodywork of the Force India VJM08B and modifications to the floor in front of the rear wheels of the Ferrari SF15-T.
The FIA approved minor changes to the layout of the Marina Bay Street Circuit ahead of the Grand Prix. The modifications ran from turn 11 to turn 13; drivers still turned right at turn 11 but it now kinked left slightly on entry, with the track shifting to the left-hand side of Fullerton Road. This changed the profile of turn 12, as drivers now used the other side of the Anderson Bridge, while the hairpin at turn 13 has been widened by a metre in order to increase overtaking opportunities. The drag reduction system (DRS) had two activation zones for the race; the first between turns five and seven down the length of Raffles Boulevard, and the second on the start/finish straight between turn 23 to turn one.
As in the previous year's event, and third season in a row, Pirelli, Formula One's sole tyre supplier, brought its yellow-banded soft compound tyre as the harder "prime" tyre and the red-banded supersoft compound tyre as the softer "option" tyre, as well as the green-banded intermediate weather and the blue-banded full-wet weather compounds.
With forest fires continuing to burn in neighboring Indonesia, heavy smog was a concern for the event. Unhealthy levels forced the cancellation of other events in Singapore in the week leading up to the Grand Prix. Race organisers, however, did not speculate whether the Grand Prix was also under threat of cancellation. It was later reported that the smog had lifted and that the race could go ahead without any restrictions.
Coming into the race weekend, Lewis Hamilton was leading the Drivers' Championship with 252 points, 53 points ahead of Nico Rosberg, his teammate at Mercedes. Another 21 points behind in third was Sebastian Vettel, driving for Ferrari. In the Constructors' Standings, Mercedes were leading on 451 points, followed by Ferrari and Williams with 270 and 188 points respectively.
Free practice
Per the regulations for the 2015 season, three practice sessions were held; there were two 90-minute sessions on Friday and another one-hour session before qualifying on Saturday. Since Singapore was a night race, the practice sessions started at a later local time; 18:00 for the first and 21:30 for the second session on Friday. This meant that the gap between the first two practice sessions was half an hour shorter than in other races. The two Mercedes cars were fastest in the first session on Friday, with Nico Rosberg topping the time sheets at 1:47.995. Championship leader Lewis Hamilton was second, 0.319 seconds behind, while Daniel Ricciardo was 0.017 seconds slower in third, ahead of the two Ferrari cars of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen, even though Vettel briefly left the track in turn five towards the end of the session. While Ricciardo felt he could go even faster, his teammate Daniil Kvyat was able to put in only eight laps due to a fuel system problem, and he finished the session eighteenth, just ahead of the two Manor Marussia drivers. Manor's Alexander Rossi placed last, albeit close to teammate Will Stevens, before crashing out at turn 18, ending the last timed runs of all other drivers left on track.
Early on in practice two, Will Stevens became the second Manor driver to make contact with the barriers, damaging his car. Teammate Rossi was limited to only three laps of running as his team spent most of the session repairing the damage from the shunt in first practice, he eventually finished almost 14 seconds down on Daniil Kvyat, who topped the session with a time of 1:46.142. The second Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo finished third, with Räikkönen in between the two. Hamilton was the fastest Mercedes driver in fourth, while Rosberg managed only seventh fastest, behind Sebastian Vettel and Sergio Pérez. Fernando Alonso finished eighth for McLaren, also within a second of Kvyat. However, his teammate Jenson Button, who was 14th with a detuned power unit, still expressed disappointment at the team's pace, saying he had hoped the car to be better. Several drivers made minor contact with the walls on the narrow Singapore circuit, including Pastor Maldonado and Carlos Sainz Jr., who suffered a left-rear puncture after hitting the wall at turn five. After the performances by both Red Bull and Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton expected a "genuine challenge" from both teams over the rest of the weekend. Meanwhile, both Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel were less optimistic. While Ricciardo said he was "still not looking to them [Mercedes]", Vettel felt that Mercedes "looked a bit slow but I'm sure they will change it for tomorrow".
In the third practice session on Saturday evening, the two Ferraris were in front, with Vettel fastest at 1:45.682, while Räikkönen was almost half a second off his teammate's pace. The two Red Bull cars of Kvyat and Ricciardo were behind, followed by both Mercedes cars, who trailed Vettel by more than a second. Meanwhile, Fernando Alonso continued McLaren's good form and finished seventh fastest. Lewis Hamilton had several problems during the session; an early run was interrupted by him leaving the track and he was later called to drive through the pit lane to cool down his overheating car. Valtteri Bottas was the fastest Williams driver in eleventh, just in front of Nico Hülkenberg, who drove a revised version of his Force India. The two Manor Marussia cars were again last, with Rossi almost three seconds ahead of Stevens.
Qualifying
Qualifying consisted of three parts, 18, 15 and 12 minutes in length respectively, with five drivers eliminated from competing after each of the first two sessions. During the first part of qualifying (Q1), only the Ferrari were confident enough to run only on the slower, harder tyres, while the rest of the field needed to equip the super-soft compound. Daniil Kvyat topped the session with a time of 1:45.340 on the supersoft tyre. Pastor Maldonado was eliminated, as were the two Manor Marussia drivers, who were even further off the pace than usual. Both of the team's drivers received a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change. Both Sauber drivers also did not make it into Q2, when Jenson Button was the last to set a fast lap, edging out Felipe Nasr by less than a tenth of a second.
Vettel set the fastest time in the second part of qualifying as well, being two-tenths faster than second placed Daniil Kvyat. While Max Verstappen made it into Q3, his teammate Sainz hit the wall in turn 19 close to the end of the session, damaging his suspension and front wing, with parts of debris left on the track. With the session ending under yellow flags, both Force India and both McLaren drivers joined Sainz in elimination, with Nico Hülkenberg fastest in eleventh place on the grid. Drivers were unable to improve on their lap times because of the yellow flags.
At the beginning of Q3, Lewis Hamilton aborted his first fast lap. Mercedes seemed to struggle most in the final sector, where Hamilton lost half a second to the Red Bull of Kvyat. Hamilton later stated that the team had problems generating heat in the tyres, essential for the final sector that benefitted high traction. It was Sebastian Vettel who took pole position, having led the final two parts of qualifying, ahead of Daniel Ricciardo, who lost time in the first sector after having to back off from Valtteri Bottas in front of him. The other Ferrari and Red Bull of Räikkönen and Kvyat claimed third and fourth on the grid respectively, followed by both Mercedes cars, who were one and a half seconds down on Vettel's pole time of 1:43.885. This was the first pole position for Ferrari since the 2012 German Grand Prix, the first in dry conditions for five years, and also prevented Lewis Hamilton from equalling Ayrton Senna's record of eight consecutive pole positions. Vettel's pole also brought an end to Mercedes's 23-race long run of pole positions, and it was the first time since the beginning of the season that the first spot on the grid was not taken by a Mercedes-powered car.
Race