1. Lewis Hamilton Britain McLaren-Mercedes 58 laps 1hr 28m 47.620s
2. Jenson Button Britain McLaren-Mercedes +00m 02.6s
3. Mark Webber Australia Red Bull-Renault +00m 24.2s
4. Michael Schumacher Germany Mercedes-Mercedes +00m 31.1s
5. Nico Rosberg Germany Mercedes-Mercedes +00m 32.2s
6. Robert Kubica Poland Renault-Renault +00m 32.8s
7. Felipe Massa Brazil Ferrari-Ferrari +00m 36.6s
8. Fernando Alonso Spain Ferrari-Ferrari +00m 46.5s
9. Adrian Sutil Germany Force India-Mercedes +00m 49.0s
10. Kamui Kobayashi Japan BMW Sauber-Ferrari +01m 05.6s

11. Pedro de la Rosa Spain BMW Sauber-Ferrari +01m 05.9s
12. Jaime Alguersuari Spain Toro Rosso-Ferrari +01m 07.8s
13. Vitantonio Liuzzi Italy Force India-Mercedes +1 lap
14. Rubens Barrichello Brazil Williams-Cosworth +1 lap
15. Vitaly Petrov Russia Renault-Renault +1 lap
16. Sebastien Buemi Switzerland Toro Rosso-Ferrari +1 lap
17. Nico Hulkenberg Germany Williams-Cosworth +1 lap
18. Timo Glock Germany Virgin-Cosworth +3 laps
19 Lucas di Grassi Brazil Virgin-Cosworth +3 laps
20. Karun Chandhok India HRT-Cosworth +6 laps

Rtd Bruno Senna Brazil HRT-Cosworth 46 laps completed
Rtd Sebastian Vettel Germany Red Bull-Renault 39 laps completed
Rtd Heikki Kovalainen Finland Lotus-Cosworth 33 laps completed
Rtd Jarno Trulli Italy Lotus-Cosworth 32 laps completed

Fastest lap:

Vitaly Petrov Russia Renault -Renault 1m 29.165s lap 57

Lewis Hamilton headed McLaren team-mate Jenson Button to an unexpected 1-2 finish in the Turkish Grand Prix after Red Bull colleagues Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber contrived to throw away a similar result.

Hamilton spoke in Saturday’s post-qualifying press conference of being ready to take any opportunity that might allow him to take his first win of the season but, after losing an early second place to Vettel during the pit-stops, the Briton appeared destined for third place.

All that changed 18 laps from home, however, when Vettel, having closed on Webber, decided to chance his arm on the run into turn twelve. Having got alongside the Australian, Vettel’s car failed to fill the Red Bull-sized gap left by his team-mate and, edging right, made hard contact with its twin. Both cars headed into the copious run-off area, Vettel having spun several times, and narrowly avoided making secondary contact as Webber attempt to find his way back onto the track.

Vettel was out on the spot, clearly unhappy with what he felt was an error – a moment of madness – by his team-mate, but Webber was able to limp back into the action, eventually stopping for new tyres and front wing with the left-hand side of his car showing its battle scars.

Such was the leading quartet’s advantage over the rest of the field, the recovering Australian was able to stop and rejoin ahead of fourth-placed Michael Schumacher, the veteran no doubt having eyed his first podium since emerging from retirement, but the Red Bull was no longer a threat to the fleeing McLarens.

Incredibly, however, the two silver machines almost threatened their own chances of a second 1-2 this season. Just seven laps after seeing their main rivals disappear off-track, and having both been told to conserve fuel, Hamilton and Button continued to dispute the lead.

With rain finally appearing on their visors – having first been predicted on lap 20 – Button closed on his countryman and, approaching the same piece of track where Vettel and Webber had collided, moved to the outside. Holding his nerve, and with Hamilton sensibly holding his line, the reigning world champion managed to go the long way around into turn twelve, grabbing the inside for the switchback into 13 and then closing off Hamilton’s line for the final turn.

Hamilton, however, had already decided to improve his exit from the corner and, tucking back into Button’s wake, was able to pop out well before the start of lap 48, diving to the inside into turn one. The two touched briefly, but there was no repeat of the RBR outcome, and, amid further warnings about the state of their fuel consumption, Button backed away.

A little over three seconds split the two McLarens as Hamilton crossed the line to take the chequered flag and his first win of the season at a circuit where he starred in the GP2 Series. Webber crossed the line over 20secs further back, and the same trio now occupy the top three positions in the world championship, albeit in reverse order, with Webber enjoying a five-point margin over Button, with Hamilton a further four points adrift.

As he approaches the beginning of the defence of his hard-fought drivers’ world championship crown in Bahrain in a week’s time, Jenson Button has reflected that there are several cars potentially capable of pulling a super-quick lap time out of the bag come qualifying in F1 2010 – but he argues that only a handful will be able to repeat that feat on race day and maintain a flat-out pace of development all the way throughout the campaign.

Pre-season testing in the top flight is famously hard to accurately read, and in 2010 that difficulty has become even more pronounced, with the ban on refuelling necessitating fuel tanks twice the size of before – and therefore by extension, producing even greater discrepancies in lap time between those running on full tanks and those undertaking low-fuel qualifying-style runs. The trick is in working out who has been doing precisely what.

Whilst firm answers will only be forthcoming in Sakhir, conventional wisdom goes that Ferrari, Red Bull Racing, Button’s McLaren-Mercedes team and the British star’s erstwhile employer Mercedes Grand Prix – formerly Brawn GP – will steal an early advantage.

Team-mate and title-winning predecessor Lewis Hamilton has warned that Sauber and Force India could similarly sneak in on the act  off the back of some surprising testing exploits, but Button suggests that whilst the pretenders to F1’s ‘big four’ might be able to do some damage over a single lap, when it comes to tyre-management over a long race distance, they will fade away again into the background.

Either way, the 30-year-old is confident that McLaren – which endured a catastrophic start to 2009, with a car that began proceedings the best part of three seconds shy of the leading pace and took half a season to adequately play catch-up – is in the ballpark and ready to do battle.

“I’m hoping the chances are good,” he told reporters during a special Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes phone-in session, when asked how optimistic he is about being able to make it back-to-back title glories this year. “In testing the car has been running very reliably, which is always important heading into a long season. The last day I drove at the test [in Barcelona] we had a new aero package on the car, which worked well; I didn’t really get a lot of time with it because it was wet in the morning, but I did a race run and some lower-fuel runs in the afternoon and everything was working very well.

“I’m happy with the way the car feels, but I still feel there is room for improvement. At Jerez, I think Lewis and myself both found [the long-run performance drop-off from the tyres] reasonably difficult, and I think it was because it was so cold and that made it difficult to get the tyres working. In Barcelona, on my run on the Saturday it was still quite difficult, because it had rained that morning and spread marbles all over the circuit; the car was quite loose at the rear, but I overtook Rubens [Barrichello] twice, I overtook Nico [Rosberg], I overtook [Vitaly] Petrov, I overtook a lot of people on my long run, so the pace was obviously good.

“Compared to the Ferrari, if you look at the race distance we did we came out on top, but you don’t exactly know what they’re doing. The pace seems good, and Lewis the following day was quick and the consistency seemed to be good when the circuit was in better nick. They tried a few of the ideas that we’d had the previous day, and he seemed reasonably happy with the car.

“Keeping the tyres in good condition is important; it seems that a lot of cars can be quick over one lap, looking at how close the times have been, but getting the tyres to work over a race distance is obviously more difficult. To see the times coming down throughout the stint on Lewis’ run was very positive, because if you’ve got a car that’s working the tyres too hard, they’re going to level out or might even go off.

Lewis Hamilton led almost from lights to flag to claim his second grand prix of the season, while Jenson Button again benefited from the misfortune of others to shore up his world championship advantage on the streets of Singapore.

Having made a lightning start, Hamilton was only briefly troubled, initially as Nico Rosberg tagged along with the McLaren, and later when Sebastian Vettel refused to be shaken off after a safety car restart, but looked comfortable as he paced the field to the chequered flag under the lights of Marina Bay. The world champion only lost the lead after taking his second fuel and tyre stop, allowing 2008 race winner Fernando Alonso a handful of laps at the front, but retook the advantage when the Spaniard stopped and cruised home over seven seconds to the good.

Rosberg appeared on course for another second place in Singapore, but made an error exiting the pits on his first stop and was relegated into the midfield by the ensuing penalty for crossing the blend line – a problem compounded by the timing of the race’s only safety car, which was called for a collision between fellow Germans Adrian Sutil and Nick Heidfeld on lap 21.

Vettel took up the mantle of chief pursuer to Hamilton, but made his own mistake by exceeding the pit-lane speed limit on his second stop, although the damage was not as severe as that endured by his Williams rival. The Red Bull driver came home as the best-placed title contender, in fourth place, despite concerns over his brakes after team-mate Mark Webber crashed when his right front disc failed.

Vettel’s problem promoted yet another German, Timo Glock, into an eventual second, the Toyota team being rewarded with a solid run back to the podium as Glock equalled his best finish in F1. Alonso completed the podium for the beleaguered Renault team, which had earlier seen rookie Romain Grosjean post the race’s first retirement.

The Brawns were also in brake trouble, forcing Button to call of his late-race pursuit of Vettel and settle for fifth, enough to extend his lead over team-mate Rubens Barrichello, who chased the Briton across the line in a race that almost made it to the two-hour time limit.

Heikki Kovalainen and Robert Kubica rounded out the scorers.