MCLAREN’s Lewis Hamilton won from pole at the Singapore Grand Prix while Jenson Button extended his lead over Brawn team-mate Rubens Barrichello to 15 points

Button crept home in fifth place ahead of Brazilian Barrichello, while Timo Glock of Toyota and Renault’s Fernando Alonso completed the podium with Sebastian Vettel fourth.

The German is 10 points behind Barrichello in the drivers’ standings with 59 while Mark Webber (51.5) can kiss his title chances goodbye after crashing out thanks to a brake failure.

Heikki Kovalainen and Robert Kubica -who held off Kazuki Nakajima and Kimi Raikkonen – completed the points positions.

Hamilton was fastest off the line thanks to a KERS boost and immediately began to set fastest laps, although five laps in he was told to disable the system.

However McLaren sorted the problem out and he streaked away at the front until a safety car period bunched the field back together before the halfway point of the race.

Nico Rosberg passed a slow-starting Sebastian Vettel for second while Fernando Alonso outsprinted Mark Webber for fourth.

Webber retook the place from Renault’s double world champion – who won this race in 2008 with help from then team-mate Nelson Piquet Jr’s deliberate crash – but was later told to give it back as he had gone around the outside off the track.

With Glock having passed the Spaniard, he was also the recipient of a place from the Australian. Meanwhile Romain Grosjean was an early retirement in the sister Renault R29, a brake issue bringing his weekend to an end.

Button had gained a place for 10th and produced a steady drive to climb the field.

Giancarlo Fisichella’s poor form in the Ferrari continued, sandwiched between the cars of former team Force India in the first stint – and while his race engineer demanded that he attack Adrian Sutil, instead he found himself defending 16th from replacement Vitantonio Liuzzi.

He came in 13th of the 14 classified cars by the end, Liuzzi behind him and Sutil having retired on lap 20.

That incident also put paid to Nick Heidfeld: Sutil touched Jaime Alguersuari’s Toro Rosso, spun and collected the BMW-Sauber as he swung the VJM02 around, smashing off his own nosecone.

Just before that smash, with Hamilton clear of Rosberg at the front, the Williams driver made the reigning world champion’s life a great deal easier by illegally crossing the white line on the narrow exit of the pitlane.

The safety car came out for several laps and bunched the field together, leaving Rosberg to serve his drive-through penalty afterwards to maximum cost. That destroyed his podium aspirations: he finished 11th.

The field having pitted during the slowdown – Kovalainen the main beneficiary, nicking a couple of places for sixth and separating Barrichello in front from Button – Vettel inherited second and briefly looked capable of challenging the race leader.

Hamilton managed to keep the gap to almost a second for a few laps though and received more good news when the German was slapped with a drive-through for speeding in the pitlane.

Vettel lost a wing mirror bumping over a kerb and seemed to be having a miserable time of it after his title hopes had seemed alive once more, rejoining in ninth. However he had stopped a second time and so thanks to some hard charging was back among the points by the end.

Webber came in for a long stop with black dust falling from his brake discs; he was given the thumbs up but soon after, with 15 laps remaining, they failed and he was sent backwards into a tyre wall.

Barrichello dived into the pits, expecting a safety car, but Button gambled by staying out – and a simple yellow flag meant his low-fuel laps before coming in saw him finish above his colleague.

The Toro Rossos of Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi were the other cars to retire, with separate problems on lap 48 of the 61; the former had damaged the fuel rig on an earlier pitstop by pulling away too soon.

Hamilton was seven seconds clear of Glock and eased home, while Ross Brawn warned his drivers of pushing too hard in the final stages due to brake degradation. (Eurosport)