Alonso soaks up the pressure for supreme Singapore win

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso secured a supremely impressive Singapore Grand Prix victory this evening in a thrilling 61-lap race. Starting from pole position, Alonso was under constant pressure from fellow front row starter Sebastian Vettel but soaked it all up to take a memorable win.

Despite a sub-standard start, Alonso kept his lead off the line by moving aggressively across the track to block the fast-starting Vettel, and quickly settled into a rythm at the front of the field. The emergence of the safety car on lap 3 to clear Liuzzi's abandoned Force India closed the pack up again, but Alonso was able to comfortably keep his lead.

Throughout the first stint of the race, Vettel kept within three seconds of Alonso, the gap briefly rising to 3.5 seconds at one point, but when both drivers pitted simultaneously on lap 29, Red Bull lost their chance of leapfrogging their rival for victory. Vettel was unable to take advantage of a second safety car period between laps 32 and 35 and despite closing to within half a second at the start of the last lap, the German had to settle for second.