Sebastian Vettel ends winless streak in 2019 Singapore GP

2019 was starting to look like a year to forget for Sebastian Vettel. A few podiums aside, the four-time champion has seen his fair share of struggles this season; from spin outs, bad calls, and penalties. At this year's Singapore Grand Prix however, the racing gods smiled upon the German driver.

It already seemed like Charles Leclerc, Vettel's team mate, was poised to take another win for the Italian squad. The sophomore driver took pole on Saturday and controlled the pace during the opening parts of the race. But a late call to pit for Vettel changed all that, and would set the events for the veteran to end his winless streak

Ferrari instructed Vettel to enter the pits on lap 20 and chose to leave Leclerc to run one more lap before the latter's tire change. In fact, the instruction came in the nick of time as Vettel was going through the penultimate corner when the call was made. It was expected that Vettel would fall back in line behind Leclerc when the pit cycles were over, but something rather special happened.

It's as if the road was cleared for Vettel when he got back on track. He didn't have to contend with mid-field traffic, allowing him to run at maximum pace and, inadvertently, getting ahead of Leclerc. From that moment on, Vettel led the Ferrari 1-2 in Singapore. He was then aided by the three safety car periods.

The first safety car period was brought out by Romain Grosjean who punted George Russell into the wall. That was then followed by Sergio Perez stopping his car following a sensor failure. Not long after, Daniil Kvyat speared into the side of Kimi Raikkonen. Every restart, Vettel got a clean getaway from his teammate, and holding on to the win. With that, Vettel ends his 392-day win drought.

With six races left in the 2019 season, are we seeing a resurgence of Ferrari? The next race will be the Russian Grand Prix, a track where Ferrari has yet to win. It will be interesting how Ferrari will continue this winning streak, especially in a grand prix where Mercedes-AMG is dominant.