It was a terrific night for Rosberg in the Lion City

It was a terrific night for Rosberg in the Lion City

      “Finally, in Singapore!” - These were the words that Nico Rosberg uttered as he can hardly contain his joy following his victory at Marina Bay — his first ever win in the Lion City.

      Indeed, it was a spectacular night for the German F1 driver as the triumph marks his 22nd win in his 200th Grand Prix, delighting both his Mercedes team and his live betting followers, who stayed late just to see him defy betting odds that put him behind teammate Lewis Hamilton. Online gambling pundits, though, saw this coming. After setting the fastest time in the practice session and taking the pole position, Rosberg seemed to be well-positioned to seize his maiden Singapore Grand Prix.

      And he did! Rosberg clocked 1:55:48.950 to finish the race and edge Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo by 0.488 seconds. Hamilton fell eight seconds behind for third while Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen and four-time Singapore GP winner Sebastian Vettel seized the fourth and fifth, respectively. The race had an eventful start as Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg crashed into a wall almost immediately at the beginning. A marshal also had a scare after narrowly getting out of Rosberg’s way following the safety car restart.

      Nonetheless, amid all the drama, Rosberg controlled the race with his pole position and maintained his lead throughout. It was only Ricciardo who posed the biggest threat to the 31-year-old. The Australian chased down Rosberg, who ran into traffic going to the 49th lap, to cut a 20-second gap to just a half a second at the finish line. However, Rosberg’s tyre strategy proved to be a big advantage as he stopped just three times compared to Ricciardo’s four.

      “Of course Daniel [Ricciardo] tried to pull one on me at the end but we managed to hold him off – I’m really, really happy,” Rosberg said.

      The victory catapulted Rosberg to the top of the F1 world championship leaderboard with 273 points. He is now eight points ahead of Hamilton and 94 points above Ricciardo. Rosberg is at 2.15 (behind Hamilton who is at 1.65) to win the World Championship; but if he can maintain his form with six races to go, there might not be enough chance for the struggling Hamilton to catch up.

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