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Christian Horner says that Sebastian Vettel put in one of the best drives of his career in Singapore – but he insists that it’s still too early for Red Bull to become too complacent about a fourth title for the German.

“We’ve only extended the lead by another seven points,” said Horner. “Fernando keps finishing the races, he keeps turning up on the podium. We’re 60 points ahead, we’ve extended our lead, but there are still 150 available. So we’ll keep our heads down and keep pushing.

“We’ve got ourselves into a good position, but things can change. We’ve just got to keep fighting all the way to the end of this championship. The kind of performance that Sebastian delivered today was right up there, one of his best if not his best.”

Vettel stunned the opposition with his pace in the opening laps and again after the safety car, where he opened up a huge gap.

“Obviously after the start it was a matter of trying to make the duration of that soft stint go far enough, so you’re managing the tyres, you’re managing the situation, and Sebastian is so good at that, as we’ve seen so many times. The pace car came at probably the worst possible time for us. We weren’t in a window where we could go to the end of the race, we’d recently changed tyres, and of course track position is crucial here.

“We gave Sebastian a target to say basically you’ve got 15 laps, do what you can. His pace during that period of the race was phenomenal. To build up what turned out to be 30s to Fernando that gave him a clear stop was absolutely remarkable. He was just in a class of his own round here today.”

Horner said he was not impressed by the booing that Vettel was again subjected to on the podium.

“It’s so unfair. The boy today has driven an unbelievable race, what you’ve witnessed today is something I think is probably one of the best drives I’ve seen him produce in terms of raw pace and what he’s been able to deliver. I just don’t think it’s sporting at the end of the day to see a driver who’s put in a performance like that not get the reception that he deserves.

“He says it doesn’t affect him and he doesn’t feel it but he’s a human being at the end of the day. You’ve driven your heart out and you’re getting that reaction, to me it’s not fair, and I don’t think it’s sporting I don’t think it’s right, and I don’t think he deserved it in any way. He’s got a broad set of shoulders, but like anyone, he’s got feelings.”

The only downside for Red Bull in Singapore was Mark Webber’s late retirement.

“It was tremendously unlucky with Mark. We started losing water pressure in the engine, then the water ran out and at that point you’re in the lap of the gods. The temperatures all started going sky high. We tried to get to the finish, we were keeping our fingers crossed that we’d get that final lap in. It was just a great shame and really gutting not to get Mark right up there as well. Without the problem could he have passed Kimi, I don’t know, but he would certainly have caught him.”

Kimi Raikkonen moved up from 13^th on the grid to take third place in Singapore, despite having suffered all weekend with a back problem.

After an early first stop found him some clean air Raikkonen was running ninth when he pitted under the safety car.

By thereafter running to the flag without another stop he was able to move up into third, behind Fernando Alonso, who followed a similar strategy.

“We had a plan and we know that what moment, if the safety car comes, we try to go until the end,” said Raikkonen. “So I knew what will happen and luckily some other teams couldn’t do it and had to pit. I was kind of stuck behind Jenson for most of the race but then I tried to give him some pressure and keep him pushing so I noticed that he started running out of his tyres and I could start to get in closer and closer.

“In the end I decided to try to pass him and managed to get past – because there were people who stopped for the fresh tyres who were catching very quickly, but luckily once I got past I could push a bit more and keep the gap big enough to end it in third place. After the weekend where we had some problems with myself and not the ideal set-up with all those things and where we were yesterday, finishing third, I don’t think we could have asked much more.”

Raikkonen admitted his back was a serious concern.

“I didn’t feel it too much during the race but obviously afterwards it’s not ideal and yesterday it was pretty bad. I almost didn’t drive, so between that and finishing third I think we have to be happy – and hopefully we can sort those problems for the next race. It’s not the first time. For a long time there have been some issues with my back. I know that I have some work to do at the end of the year, so we have to see what we do.”

Fernando Alonso managed to turn seventh on the grid into second at the chequered flag after a vintage performance by the Spaniard in Singapore.

He jumped up to third at the start and then gambled by pitting under a safety car on lap 25 while Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg up ahead chose to stay out, as did Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton. He dropped to fifth but managed to keep his tyres in good shape and get to the flag. When the others pitted only Vettel was able to stay ahead, leaving Alonso in second.

“It was not easy, obviously, to finish the race with those tyres,” he said. “But we committed to that strategy when we pit under the safety car and we were controlling the pace all through the last stint thanks to the gap that we managed to build. The start again was very good and I was lucky to choose the right line. On Turn One there is always people going on the left, people going on the right in every circuit.

“We’ve managed so far to choose the right one. And then we were third which was already a good result for us. But when we didn’t stop Rosberg pitting in the safety car, we decided to pit and to try something different. We were too slow this weekend. We were not in a level that we should be. We try a little bit different things, and it paid off at the end with a fantastic second place. For us it tastes like a victory today.”

He admitted that the team didn’t know if the gamble would work.

“We didn’t know exactly how long the tyres would survive. We were maybe not expecting that long but… We are sixty points behind in the championship, if it works OK, if it doesn’t work maybe we don’t finish second, we finish fourth or fifth.

“There was a small chance that if Rosberg, Webber and Hamilton were not that slow after the safety car, maybe Sebastian didn’t get the 28 seconds necessary to exit in front of me but Nico, I think, had a problem with the front wing, Webber was without tyres and Hamilton pitted very late, the last.

“So when I had a free track and Seb pitted and exited in front of me already so we had a small chance to maybe lead the race but obviously very difficult to keep [with] Sebastian. Probably in the last part of the race with new tyres and we with a very slow pace. But we tried, nothing to lose and I think that will be the strategy in the last part of the championship. We are not as fast as they are in qualifying or in the race so we will try something different.”

Meanwhile Alonso admitted that the championship is getting ever more difficult.

“Well obviously we have to be realistic. A few races to go already, the gap is still increasing every weekend and now it’s sixty points. So, as I said, we need to be honest with ourselves and knowing that we need a lot of luck. We don’t need luck in Korea; we need luck in Korea, in Japan, in India, in Abu Dhabi… We need luck every weekend if we are one second off the pace. We need a lot of luck. On the other hand, we are a very uncomfortable opponent, I think, because if we get that luck, we will be there.”

Mark Webber has landed himself a 10-place grid penalty for Korea after flagging down Fernando Alonso after the end of the Korean GP.

Webber, who retired from the race on the last lap, was given a lift back to the pits by the Ferrari driver.

However the Aussie received a reprimand because “he went onto the track without the permission of the marshals.” Because he already has two reprimands he now earns an automatic 10-place penalty for the next race.

Alonso meanwhile also received a reprimand because he “drove the car in a manner which could be deemed potentially dangerous to other drivers or to any other person.”

While the reprimands seemed harsh at first given it was a nice example of camaraderie – and made for great TV – CCTV footage subsequently released to the media by the FIA showed that if anything both drivers were lucky to get away so lightly.

Webber can be seen sprinting from the end of the escape road to the track where he flags down Alonso, who stops and forces the closely following Kimi Raikkonen to swerve in avoidance. Other cars also had to take action when they found the Ferrari stationary on the racing line as Webber climbed aboard.

As an aside there was a major accident on the slowing down lap of today’s GP2 race when a lapped Alex Rossi slowed to turn into the paddock back gate and was hit hard by third place Fabio Leimer, who like the other podium finishers was under instructions to head on round to the pits for the post race ceremony…

Caterham has finally confirmed that it will continue with Renault into the turbo era.

Although there was never any question of the team taking any other route, given Caterham’s road car partnership with Renault, the deal has only now been formalised. It covers the 2014-2016 seasons.

The news leaves Lotus and Sauber as the only teams yet to officially confirm their 2014 deals with their current suppliers.

“This announcement is obviously very good news for our F1 team,” said team principal Cyril Abiteboul. “And is a reflection of the deep bonds that have been created between our two businesses since 2011, particularly with the road car project we launched in 2012 between Caterham and Alpine, which is now at an advanced stage in development.

“Given the age and status of our team we have also been pleased to see Renault Sport F1 adapting their operational practices to suit our size and optimizing our integration with an enhanced technical collaboration. We work together in an open and honest manner to help Caterham F1 Team achieve its short-term goal of establishing itself as an integral part of F1 and to help Renault achieve the deserved recognition of its technical edge.”

“Over the past three years we have seen Caterham mature, with impressive new facilities and a solid technical structure, said Jean-Michel Jalinier, President and Managing Director of Renault Sport F1. “The new technical regulations provide a big challenge, but with change comes opportunity and next year is a prime chance for the team to secure the next targets in its ongoing plans.

“From the very start our partnership has been comprehensive and it is therefore natural that we would want to see it pay dividends. We are very happy with the quality and depth of the teams we will supply and look forward to seeing the first generation of Energy F1-powered cars hit the track next year.”

A frustrated Lewis Hamilton blamed himself for qualifying only fifth in Singapore, four places behind Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg.

Hamilton, who was some 0.322s off the German, was clearly not happy after the session.

“I don’t feel great, it was a poor qualifying for me,” he said. “That’s two bad qualifying sessions I’ve had so I’m just going to try and improve for next time. At least I got to Q3. I just wasn’t fast enough, there’s nothing to put it down to, I just didn’t drive fast enough.

“I was pushing as fast as I could, but I just wasn’t fast enough. There was a lot of grip in the tyres, and it’s the way you utilise them the most I think is where people find time, and I didn’t utilise them as well as others.”

Regarding the race, he said: “I can try and get up onto the podium, that’s going to have to be the target, try and get some good points tomorrow, but I’ve still got people to beat.”

Asked if he was confident that there would be no tyre issues, he added: “No, we’ll see tomorrow. It’s a different day. We could go well, we could go bad, we’ll see.”

Sebastian Vettel sat out the final qualifying runs in Singapore and hung on to pole position after rivals failed to beat his time.

Nico Rosberg, Romain Grosjean and Mark Webber all came close, but in the end the gamble paid off. Unusually Vettel was confirmed as the polesitter for Sunday’s race while standing in front of a TV monitor after what was an impressive display of confidence.

“It’s a weird feeling,” he admitted. “You stand in the garage when there’s roughly two minutes to go in the session and you know that it’s too late. But then it’s much worse when you see the others at the final attempt and you know there’s nothing you can do. I was watching the sector times very closely with obviously Romain, Nico and Mark in particular. Mark started with a purple sector one, very close in sector two, then Nico had a purple sector two, then Romain had a purple sector two.

“Then fortunately my last sector was strong enough to just stay ahead. It was very close in the end with Nico. That’s a great feeling then, obviously, because it could go wrong but very happy obviously with the result. The car’s been phenomenal all weekend. Yesterday I think the gap was a bit of a surprise. Today’s been more what we expected – especially with Mercedes being very close behind.

“I knew that obviously we had a cushion which is why we decided not to run again, but the thing you don’t know is how much the track improves so I’m sure that there was a little bit of track ramping up plus the fact that if you run again you get a better feel for the tyres, for the track and you get a little bit more out of yourself, so we thought it was good enough and in the end it was good enough. But yeah, it was probably a bit closer. Both of them, Nico and Romain, had a very strong middle sector but fortunately my last sector was strong enough to keep them just behind.”

Vettel admitted that despite being on pole, his Sunday might not be so straightforward, given the challenges of Singapore.

“It’s one of the toughest races we face all year. I would say the toughest – physically and mentally – because it’s so long. One lap is so long, there’s so many corners, there’s hardly any room for mistakes, it’s very bumpy and we’re all sweating pretty much even though we only did a couple of laps in qualifying.

“So the heat obviously and the humidity plays a factor. It will be very tough. Surely pole is the best position to start from – very happy with that as it is tricky to pass on this track. But because it is such a long race I think there is plenty of opportunities for all of us. Usually we get a safety car at some stage in the race. Yeah, as I said, happy to start from pole, try to have a good start and then settle into a nice rhythm and see what we can do.”