Lewis Hamilton seemed all set for a second victory in Singapore on Sunday, until his gearbox broke on the 23rd lap. A problem which McLaren had known of and attempted to nurse, the 2008 Champion retired from a two-second lead over Sebastian Vettel.
“It’s heart-breaking not to have finished the race,” he said bluntly. “We definitely had the pace to win and, in fact, before I retired I was cruising - just managing the gap back to Seb (Vettel). Then I started to experience difficulty with the gearshift, then I lost third gear and then the box kept dropping into neutral.
“Obviously, I was disappointed, but the good thing we can take away from this weekend is that we have extremely good pace. I’ll fight until the end.”
Team-mate Jenson Button finished second but also felt sorry for his team-mate.
“As a team, it’s a disappointing to have another failure this weekend but we have a very good car so we can go to every race with a chance of winning,” he said on the rostrum.
McLaren remains second in the Constructors’ Championship with six races remaining in 2012, but Red Bull has now stretched its lead to 37 points.
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  S. Vettel | Red Bull | 2:00:26.144 |
| 2. | J. Button | McLaren | +8.959 |
| 3. | F. Alonso | Ferrari | +15.227 |
| 4. | P. di Resta | Force India | +19.063 |
| 5. | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | +34.784 |
| 6. | K. Raikkonen | Lotus | +35.759 |
| 7. | R. Grosjean | Lotus | +36.698 |
| 8. | F. Massa | Ferrari | +42.829 |
| 9. | D. Ricciardo | Toro Rosso | +45.820 |
| 10. | S. Perez | Sauber | +50.619 |
| Full results | |||
| Jenson Button | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| More Jenson Button photos | |||
| Lewis Hamilton | |||
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| More Lewis Hamilton photos | |||
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