Last Updated: 24th September 2012
LEWIS HAMILTON was cursing more bad luck as his title chances took another huge blow when he retired in last night’s Singapore Grand Prix.
The McLaren ace was cruising under the spotlights that lit Singapore’s streets until he ground to a halt on the 23rd lap with a gearbox problem.
He has now retired in FOUR of the last SEVENraces, leaving him 52 points behind world championship leader Fernando Alonso.
Hamilton, who has still to commit his future to McLaren, admits he needs to win the last six races to wrestle the title from the Spaniard.
He said: “This was a huge hit. I am 52 points behind and that means I have got to finish ahead of Fernando and get 10 points more than him at every race.
“It’s heartbreaking not to have finished here. We had the pace to win and before I retired, I was cruising. Then I started to experience difficulty with the gearshift, I lost third gear, and then the gearbox kept dropping into neutral.
“I just hope this is the end of our bad luck this year. We have had bad luck in crashes and we didn’t finish because of another gearbox failure.
“You can’t afford that and we’ve had far too many. We’ve had the car to finish a lot further ahead in those first eight races but we didn’t.
“It is going to be hard to close the gap because Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen keep on finishing races.
“There are six more races, and I need to win all six but I’ll fight until the end.”
The retirement was hard on Hamilton and handed an easy victory to Red Bull’s Vettel, who finished ahead of Jenson Button, while Alonso was in third place.
Hamilton, 27, has now crashed out in Valencia and Spa, while he suffered another gearbox woe in Hockenheim in his 100th Grand Prix.
Those failures to finish means he is now fourth in the drivers’ championship after being leapfrogged by Vettel and Raikkonen.
FINAL PUSH ... Lewis Hamilton's car leaves track
It was especially hard on Hamilton after he blew away the rest of the grid during Saturday’s qualifying session where he was almost half a second quicker than Pastor Maldonado, who started in second place.
The two collided in Valencia but steered clear of each other here, though the Venezuelan later pulled out with a hydraulic problem.
Maldonado’s retirement played into Alonso’s hands as he was able to move up to third place behind Button, who himself nearly came a cropper under the safety car.
The McLaren driver almost went into the back of Vettel, who was driving erratically to warm his tyres and brakes.
The German was hauled in front of the race stewards but escaped without a penalty while Button was relieved just to miss clipping the reigning champ.
He said: “I was surprised at how quickly Sebastian slowed. I am not pointing the finger at anyone, I just asked for clarification on the radio really.
“I don’t think it was a brake test because Sebastian is not a stupid driver. He knows if he brake-tests me, we will crash and it is not just me out of the race, it is him as well.
“I watched the video back and I still don’t know how I missed him.”
Though Button avoided a crash Michael Schumacher inexplicably slammed his Mercedes into the back of Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne, wrecking both cars.
The seven-time world champion admitted it was his error and he has been slapped with a 10-place grid penalty for the Japanese Grand Prix.
Force India’s Paul Di Resta posted his best-even finish in Formula One to snatch fourth place.
