I

t was a bright and relieving moment last week for the Red Bull Racing team as its defending champion, Sebastian Vettel, retained his Singapore Grand Prix title, boosting the driver’s standing to second place.

Toasts from glasses of champagne and red wine added to the celebrative atmosphere in the team’s Paddock Club as Vettel took the checkered flag, waving to roaring crowds at the Marina Bay Street Circuit in Singapore, last Sunday.

For Vettel and his team, the victory in Singapore was essential following a number of slow races over the past few months. The 2011 world champion’s last podium finish ahead of Singapore was at the Bahrain GP in April.

Vettel capitalized on McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton’s gearbox failure and subsequent departure on Lap 22. The technical problem was indeed painful for Hamilton, who had started the race on the pole.

“It’s great to get the win today. I’d like to dedicate it to Professor Sid Watkins. Thanks to all the work he did to bring safety advancements to the sport so that we can race on circuits like this,” Vettel said in a post-race interview from the podium, moments before receiving the trophy.

“Looking at the race, Lewis had to retire, which is a shame for him. I know how it feels and have been in that position before. I think we could have had a tight battle. I felt very good on the harder tires and we had a lot of pace. I think it’s very good to get this win here today. We know the next few races will be tough, but that’s the challenge,” added the 25-year-old German.

Meanwhile, Red Bull’s second driver, Mark Webber, missed out on collecting points after he was handed a post-race time penalty for swaying from the track. He dropped one place outside 10th position.

“I wasn’t too bad pace wise. The strategy was going alright, but the second safety car really hurt us and put us at the back of the queue,” Webber said.

“Around here, fighting and looking after your tires is a bit of a mess. It’s a shame. Sebastian got some good points for the team, so that’s good and I’m just looking forward now to the next few races. I like Suzuka [Circuit in Suzuka, Japan], so I’m looking forward to that,” he said, as quoted by the team’s official website, redbullracing.com.

The next race will be on Oct. 7.

The team’s principal, Christian Horner, said that both Vettel and the team had a tremendous result for the night. “It’s a timely win for both championships. It was unfortunate for Lewis to retire from the lead. We know how that feels and it’s never a good feeling.

“Nonetheless, Sebastian had tremendous pace all weekend and it’s a shame in some respects, as I’m sure they’d have had a great race over the remainder of the grand prix,” he added.

As for Webber, Horner further said that the team elected to go with a three-stop strategy and it was working well during the race.

“There was the first safety car and, having just made a stop, we knew we couldn’t get to the end on those tires, so we made a gamble and stayed out.

“Then his strategy was destroyed with the second safety car, caused by the [Michael] Schumacher and [Jean-Eric] Vergne incident. We had to pit him from there to get him to the end of the race, which dropped him back. His recovery from there was strong,” said Horner, whose Red Bull-Renault constructor still leads the standings.

The team deserved to celebrate its win after a modest qualifying run the day before, when Vettel only managed to reach third place for the start, while Webber qualified in seventh.

While hailing the team’s success, Horner admitted there was some truly tough competition this season.

“I mean, Lewis Hamilton, we really have to get into him. So, we try to put pressure on him, it’s also important to beat Fernando Alonso [of Ferari]. He’s the championship leader, and we’re chasing him,” Horner said to the crowd at the Paddock Club after the qualifying round.

Vettel has collected 165 points in the provisional standings, 29 points behind leader Alonso.