Hamilton wins as Vettel crashes out in Singapore

Lewis Hamilton profited from chaos to win the Singapore F1 Grand Prix and extend his championship lead yesterday as title rival Sebastian Vettel lost huge ground after crashing out on the first lap.

Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo prevented a Mercedes 1-2 by finishing ahead of Valtteri Bottas, who placed third.

Vettel can have little complaint as he seemed to cause the first-turn mayhem, despite starting from pole position. The crash caused a domino effect, taking out his Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and McLaren’s Fernando Alonso.

Having started from fifth, on one of the toughest tracks in F1 for overtaking, Hamilton could not believe his luck. The field opened up perfectly for the British driver to seal his third straight win, seventh of the season and 60th overall.

‘‘I capitalised on the incident,’’ Hamilton said. ‘‘Who could have known that would happen?’’

He now has a commanding 28-point lead over Vettel with just six races remaining.

For the highly consistent Ricciardo, it was a seventh podium in the past 10 races. Carlos Sainz Jr. secured a career-best fourth place for Toro Rosso, with Force India’s Sergio Perez in fifth.

Vettel took pole with a super performance in qualifying, but his form didn’t translate to the race.

Following a massive downpour several hours beforehand, more heavy showers soaked the Marina Bay circuit just before the night-time race.

The treacherous conditions might have made Vettel a bit nervous, even on a track where he holds the record with four wins.