Looking forward to the start of the 2015 Singapore Grand Prix at the Marina Bay street circuit, no one could blame you for thinking that Ferrari and Red Bull would finally “stick it” to Mercedes.

As it so happened, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel secured his third victory of the year, and his fourth career win in Singapore, leading a very exciting race which featured two different “re-starts” behind the Safety Car and quite a bit of drama as well.

In the end, Vettel crossed the line just 1.4 seconds ahead of Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, while Kimi Raikkonen finished P3 – though perhaps as impressive as the result itself, was the way in which that Ferrari flew across the track, showing a way stronger pace than either of the Mercedes cars.

Red Bull ran a strong race as well, matching Ferrari through some sectors, themselves proving to be faster than Mercedes though the low-speed, high-downforce street circuit that is Marina Bay.

Reigning world champ Lewis Hamilton had to retire for the first time in 2015 after communicating to his pit crew that the car was losing power. His teammate, Nico Rosberg crossed the finish line 4th, ahead of Williams’ Valtteri Bottas and Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat.

P7 went to Force India’s Sergio Perez, while the final three positions in the top 10 were split between Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz and Felipe Nasr, in precisely that order.

As of right now, Rosberg stands 42 points behind Hamilton, while Vettel himself is just 8 points behind Rosberg. With six races left on the calendar, saying that anything is possible might be a bit of a stretch, but P2, as well as P4 is absolutely up for grabs.

Ferrari also claimed that after their most recent upgrade, they can finally match Mercedes in terms of horsepower. We’ll hold off judgement until we see what they can do on a high speed track.

Still, if this was all we had to go on, we could say that Formula 1 racing just got a hell of a lot more interesting at the top.

10 Random Things We Noticed

– Wow, Perez shows awesome control by not wiping out Nico Hulkenberg on the opening lap. That would have been tragic for Force India.

– Red Bull came prepared to Singapore. They were constantly putting up fast times in the middle sector (as they did in qualifying). During the race, even with their sub-par Renault engine, that Red Bull was the fastest car on the grid during certain high-speed corners. Ferrari might think twice about giving them a strong power unit next year.

– It seems ‘Xbox’ is the latest addition to the sides of those Lotuses. They’re out to promote Forza 6 and it looks like Grosjean and Maldonado are wearing green ‘Xbox One-styled’ uniforms.

– Oh, so much for Hulkenberg being happy he’s still in the race. Instead of being wiped out on lap 1 by his teammate, he’s just been taken out by Massa – though it was kind of his fault.

– Two Safety Cars made their way onto the track on Sunday and both restarts were pretty interesting. Also, the second deployment happened because a fan got onto the track where he just started strolling along like he was walking through the park. The man was later arrested.

– Let’s take lap no.20 for example and talk about the fact that we have a 3 car race for the lead between Vettel, Ricciardo and Raikkonen. Now, isn’t this infinitely better than just watching Lewis Hamilton build insurmountable leads and winning easily every single time?

– Speaking of Lewis, as his Mercedes gave in, Rosberg had an excellent chance to cut into the championship deficit even more. Unfortunately for all F1 fans, he didn’t.

– Wasn’t there one team we expected to have a good race here and didn’t? Hmm…ah yes, McLaren! Remember how confident they were a few weeks ago about having a strong performance in Singapore? Yeah, no.

– What an awesome race from Max Verstappen. He was the last one to get going off the line and still finished P8! Sure, the two safety cars helped, but overall he showed amazing pace and determination.

– Newcomer Alexander Rossi (who replaced Roberto Merhi) finished ahead of his teammate Will Stevens, which means a lot, especially when it’s your first Formula 1 race.

Marina Bay Race Results

1. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari
2. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull
3. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari
4. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes
5. Valtteri Bottas, Williams
6. Daniil Kvyat, Red Bull
7. Sergio Perez, Force India
8. Max Verstappen, Toro Rosso
9. Carlos Sainz, Toro Rosso
10. Felipe Nasr, Sauber
11. Marcus Ericsson, Sauber
12. Pastor Maldonado, Lotus
13. Romain Grosjean, Lotus
14. Alexander Rossi, Marussia
15. Will Stevens, Marussia