Fernando Alonso had the speed to get onto the top two rows of the Singapore grid last year, but a dropped safety valve in one of the fuel lines put him out of action at the beginning of Q2. From that moment on, Renault’s Pat Symonds had the idea of taking a big gamble in the race, one that has now become the subject of an FIA investigation into race fixing....

"There was nothing to lose. Worst case we would have been as bad as if we were doing nothing."

And that was the plan, instead of fuelling him long they opted for a short first stint, get rid of the option tyres, which the Renault did not like at all, and then hope for a miracle, or a safetycar, and it miraculously appeared just when they needed it on lap 15, three laps after Alonso had put the prime tyres on his Renault and fuelled until lap 41, switching from his original three stop strategy to two.

The safetycar came at the perfect time as at that moment nobody, bar Alonso, had stopped. It came because his Renault teammate Nelson Piquet crashed at the exit of turn 17 and even though some conspiracy theories at the time suggested that it was done on purpose, but apart from the fact that it was thought no team would ask their driver to do such a dangerous thing, Renault explained at the time that as Piquet’s car was heavy on fuel (28laps) it was therefore very difficult to drive. Nelson was also known for his constant crashing, so it seemed feasible that this occurred on it’s accord.

The moment the Renault hit the wall it was clear that apart from the one-stoppers, Trulli and Fisichella, everybody would have to stop under the safetycar, two of them even came in when the pitlane was closed. As a result, both men, Rosberg and Kubica, were handed a 10 second stop and go-penalty for refuelling when it was forbidden. They had no choice but to refuel, only Williams played their cards better than BMW. They called Rosberg into the pits immediately in order to bring him out in front of Trulli, who had slowed down the field.

"Honestly, we had no other choice than to pit at lap 15, because otherwise we would have risked running out of fuel", Sam Michael admitted.

This allowed Nico to push from the leading position until the FIA asked him to do his penalty stop. In those 11 laps he gained 13.2 seconds on Trulli.

"We were praying that the penalty would become official as late as possible. Every extra lap gained us time, sometimes even three seconds a lap. In that period Nico was driving brilliantly," Michael recalled.

You could say that running out of fuel on lap 15 was lucky for Rosberg, but you also could argue that he had passed the pit entrance a few seconds too early when Piquet crashed as he was actually in turn 3 when it happened. He eventually finished second behind Alonso but there is no point saying he would have had his first victory if Piquet had not crashed as the accident actually changed so much.

Now, let’s take a closer look at Piquet’s weekend....

Nelson Piquet felt comfortable in his Renault for three practice sessions in fact in third practice he set a time of 1.45.2 which would have brought him easily into Q2, but for reasons unknown at the time, the engineers changed his setup before qualifying. The effect of this change on Piquet’s car was that it started to understeer, which he hates. Then under pressure of setting one quick lap at the end of Q1, he was putting too much effort into putting space between him and the other cars and the tyre pressure dropped, and the laptime he was chasing did not come.

Very odd indeed, why change a car that the driver likes just before qualifying? Now, if what we are hearing is true, we know why.....

For Renault and Alonso it soon became clear that despite a blackout of their strategy software, they would win the race unless there was another safetycar. Although it was called back into action after a crash from Adrian Sutil, it was so late in the race that nobody was affected.

At the time it was thought that Alonso deserved the victory. He drove an excellent race, set the third fastest time of the event and in the end had the perfect tyres. While his rivals were on the graining option tyres, he was running on the primes and after the second re-start he opened up a gap of 6.3 seconds in just two laps over Rosberg and Hamilton.

But, up until lap fourteen, Felipe Massa was the man to beat all weekend, the Brazilian driving an incredible time in Q3, six tenths faster than Hamilton, but in the race it all went wrong for Ferrari. It was the first Grand Prix since Melbourne 2006 that both cars failed to score points.

Contrary to several reports at the time, Massa did not lose the victory in the pits when Ferrari released him too early, he actually lost it under the safety car, the same safety car allegedly brought into play by Renault. The mishap during the refuelling cost him a third place, but no more. Why so? That’s easy to explain...

Everybody who refuelled on lap 17 would have fallen behind Alonso, Trulli and even worse so, behind Coulthard, this would have included Massa. Under ideal circumstances, he would have come out just in front of Hamilton. The race showed that Hamilton was stuck behind Coulthard’s Red Bull up until lap 42. For Massa it would have been the same and at that time, Alonso and Rosberg were so far ahead that even a late second pitstop would not have brought Felipe in front of the leading two cars.

The story in the Ferrari pits is a short one. Due to the fact that all cars were entering pitlane on lap 17, Ferrari switched their sensor-activated light system to manual mode and the chief mechanic simply pressed the green button too soon. So Felipe got away pulling the fuel hose behind the car. As a result he was forced to wait at the end of pit exit until the puzzled mechanics arrived to remove it and this cost him 92 seconds. Massa was also handed a drive-through penalty for an unsafe release from the pits where once again he was in Adrian Sutil’s way, similar to Valencia when the team were handed a 5000 Euro fine for the same offence.

Looking at all this, thoughts go to the final championship race where Hamilton beat Felipe by just one point and one can’t help but wonder what would have happened that afternoon in Brazil had the safety car not come out on lap 14 of the Singapore Grand Prix, allowing Hamilton to score six points to Massa’s zero....

How they finished.....

1	F Alonso	Renault F1		2	-	61
2	N Rosberg	Williams Toyota		3	+2.957	61
3	L Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes		2	+5.917	61
4	T Glock	Toyota		2	+8.155	61
5	S Vettel	Scuderia Toro Rosso		2	+10.268	61
6	N Heidfeld	BMW Sauber		2	+11.101	61
7	D Coulthard	Red Bull Racing		2	+16.387	61
8	K Nakajima	Williams Toyota		2	+18.489	61
9	J Button	Honda Racing		2	+19.885	61
10	H Kovalainen	McLaren Mercedes		2	+26.902	61
11	R Kubica	BMW Sauber		3	+27.975	61
12	S Bourdais	Scuderia Toro Rosso		2	+29.432	61
13	F Massa	Ferrari		3	+35.170	61
14	G Fisichella	Force India		1	+43.571	61