2008 Singapore F1 Grand Prix: Day Three Report with Videos

It was a race full of drama for the first ever Singapore Grand Prix last night. Singapore's F1 night race was spectacular but it will not be remembered too fondly by the those in Team Ferrari for sure. They had a disaster of a night! Ferrari's Fernando Massa who took the pole position at the start of the race ended the race at 14th after a pit stop gaffe and to add insult to injury, his teammate Kimmi Raikkonen did not even complete the race!

It began so well for Ferrari. They had Massa leading the pack and everybody including me thought for certain he will dominate the race. But it all went bad when Nelson Piquet Jr crashed his Renault (video here) and the safety car had to come out. The race went into chaos. Williams's Nico Rosberg and BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica went into the pitstop when it was closed during the safety car period and had to serve stop-go penalties. Then when it's Massa's turn to pit, his pit crew could not pull the fuel hose out in time when Massa hit the pedal (video below).



The fuel hose snapped and Massa with the fuel hose still attached to his Ferrari, had to stop 100m ahead while his pitcrew still in shocked, then ran frantically towards his car to pull the hose out. Incredible scenes! The pitstop howler slowed down Massa considerably and in addition, he was also given a drive-through penalty.



With Massa seemingly out of the running, Ferrari had to depend on defending champion Raikkonen to finish the race and get some points for them but he stupidly crashed his car (video above) towards the later part of the race. He was driving in fifth position during the crash.

The race was then won amazingly by Fernando Alonso of Renault who started at 15th position! But the biggest of smiles were reserved for Lewis Hamilton who finished third. He and his McLaren team must be happy that both Massa and Raikkonen did not get any points in Singapore - justice done, perhaps - as they look to win both the Drivers' and Constructors' Championship this year.

You can read all the drivers' comments after the race here and the full results here.

Previously:
2008 Singapore F1 Grand Prix: Day Two
2008 Singapore F1 Grand Prix: Day One Report with Videos