Analysis: How Hamilton got the 'miracle' he was hoping for

Rain falling on the grid at a track where F1 cars have barely even run in the wet in 10 years, never mind raced, appeared to set up the prospect of a fantastic race in Singapore.

Unfortunately, the first corner accident wiped out much of the interest in one fell swoop.

There have been many races over the past three seasons where, with all due respect to Mercedes, the loss of the top two qualifiers on the first lap would have set up a potentially exciting battle for the lead.

However, on this occasion the instant departure of Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen, along with fourth starter Kimi Raikkonen, robbed fans of what promised to be a thrilling contest in the dry.

Equally, any time that the driver who starts fifth emerges at end the first lap in front and goes onto win it would normally be regarded as an unexpected result.

However, the man who achieved that feat was Lewis Hamilton – hardly a shock winner given his form in the turbo era.

That's not to take anything away from a superb performance from the Briton. On a weekend when he didn't have a clear car advantage, and in extremely tricky conditions, he did a pitch-perfect job.

It was the sort of drive that wins world championships, and given that he ended the day with a 28-point lead over Vettel, he has most definitely taken another step towards his fourth title.

"I've said it before, on a difficult day you'd like Lewis in the car," said Toto Wolff. "This was another example. There was more chance of making a mistake than actually driving it home."

Qualifying gave fans the sort of battle they have craved for the past few years: three teams in contention, and Mercedes not only under pressure but actually outpaced by two rivals.

Singapore has always been a tricky circuit for the world champion team, and a good venue for Red Bull. Daniel Ricciardo had qualified third, second and second over the previous three years, and from the start of the weekend the Aussie and teammate Verstappen were flying.

Indeed, the latter was fastest in Q1 and Q2, only to lose out to Vettel when it really mattered. It had been far from a clean weekend for Ferrari, but Vettel – pole man here in 2015 – put in a brilliant lap, much to the frustration of Red Bull boss Christian Horner.

Hamilton and Bottas found themselves down in fifth and sixth, knowing that they would face a Sunday evening of damage limitation – while hoping that circumstances would give them a hand.

It worked out better than he could possibly have imagined. As Verstappen and Raikkonen tangled he also picked off Ricciardo to go second, and then a few seconds later the crippled Vettel spun and Hamilton ducked past to take the lead.

Four laps of safety car followed, during which time Hamilton and his rivals had to try to keep heat on their intermediate tyres.

The restart was absolutely crucial, not just because of the tyre situation – for the drivers it was also the first look at much of the damp track at full speed, as the safety car had interrupted the first flying lap.

Judging levels of grip was thus not easy, but Hamilton did a storming job to open up a remarkable advantage of 3.5s over Ricciardo. Even allowing for the spray making life harder for the Aussie, this was mighty impressive.

Hamilton didn't disappear into the distance, however. By lap 10 he'd only edged his margin out to 5.1s – and then Danill Kvyat's crash triggered a safety car, and that gap was lost.

Hamilton stayed out, but Red Bull chose to pit Ricciardo and give him a fresh set of intermediates, and thus potentially better grip for longer after the restart.

Initially he lost a place in the queue to Nico Hulkenberg, but the German pitted next time around, so Daniel was back up to second and sitting right behind Hamilton.

Knowing Ricciardo was on new tyres, Hamilton was rattled by this, and he questioned the decision not to stop. "Has everyone changed tyres except me?," he asked. "Not sure that was a good idea, was it?"

Later he again queried Ricciardo's "free stop," and was told that had he come in, Red Bull would have done the opposite, left Ricciardo out, and gained track position – this was normal strategy stuff.

"He could have done the opposite and you end up second on the road," said Wolff. "So no option for us."

At the restart at the end of lap 14 Hamilton has to start building that gap again. This time he had 1.9s at the end of the first flying lap, and didn't find it quite so easy to eke out a gap.

The track took a surprisingly long time to dry – there was no sunlight to speed up the process of course – and now attention was all focussed on the crossover to slicks. There was much banter between teams and drivers before Kevin Magnussen and Felipe Massa took the plunge on lap 24.

It took a couple of laps before it became clear that they had made a good call, and everyone else had to follow.

Hamilton was still doing a great job in these conditions – possibly his worn tyres were actually working well – and Ricciardo had dropped to around 8.2s behind the leader before he came in on lap 28.

Hamilton followed a lap later, and with great in and out laps he gained another half a second.

Practice suggested that in dry conditions Ricciardo would have an advantage, and many expected him to close the gap – but Hamilton kept it at around the 9s mark as the pair traded fastest laps.

And then came Marcus Ericsson's shunt and another safety car on lap 38. Hamilton made his frustration clear as he realised he now had to do it all again for a third time.

At the restart on lap 42, he put in another strong first lap, opening up 2.2s, before almost doubling it on the next lap. But on the very next lap the gap was down to 1.7s. So what was going on?

Radio messages revealed him being told to go to "attack mode one," which meant backing off to compress the field.

The idea was to prevent Ricciardo and others behind him having enough of a gap to those behind to have a free stop if a safety car came out. That would potentially give them new tyres and a chance to attack at the restart.

Hamilton, who never likes not running flat out because it's not his natural rhythm, replied by saying, "I don't get your tactics. It doesn't feel comfortable driving off pace."

After that little episode the team was happy enough for him to stretch the gap to around 4-5s, keeping it there all the way to the flag.

It was a faultless performance by Hamilton, and his superiority over Ricciardo was not what we had expected at all after qualifying. And he had to bring it safely home at a track where there is little margin for error.

While Ricciardo's gearbox issues clearly hampered the Red Bull driver, that might not have been the full story behind the turnaround.

"We didn't have the quickest car yesterday," said Wolff. "But Daniel is a benchmark around Singapore in the Red Bull, and we were pulling away in all conditions, and on various tyres. That is interesting to analyse and understand."

He had his own theory: "Tyre temperatures. We were running always in a zone where we had the tyre temperatures under control and yesterday it was hotter, and in order to extract it on one lap you need to run them higher.

"The track was green. The grip was less than in qualifying yesterday and it was cooler and less push."

So a great evening for Hamilton and his team, and this at a track where he could have lost a lot of ground to Vettel. Can Ferrari still turn things around?