Heading into the Singapore GP weekend, the main question was whether Mercedes could continue their dominance, or if other teams could challenge them on the much slower and tighter Marina Bay Street Circuit.
After Free Practice, Red Bull and Ferrari appeared to be a lot closer than in the previous race at Monza, and Toro Rosso looked relatively strong - especially with Jean Eric Vergne, who doesn't even have a contract for 2015.
In Qualifying, after the usual suspicions that Mercedes were sandbagging, they duly took the front row, but the gap between Hamilton (pole) and Rosberg (2nd) was just 0.007s, the smallest margin for a long time.
Behind them, we saw Red Bull, Ferrari and Williams (who appear to have improved their slow circuit setup) take the next six places, ahead of the McLaren and Toro Rosso drivers (Magnussen and Kvyat made the top 10, their team mates did not).
Force India were below par in Qualifying, with Singapore not suiting their car in the same way as low downforce circuits, whereas Lotus were struggling as usual (but not in the same way as they were last time out).
Marussia and Caterham completed the grid, more than half a second off the other teams.
All was calm going into Sunday, but in an interview with Sky Sports F1, Lewis admitted that "if his car doesn't finish tomorrow, he's still in the mix; if mine doesn't, I'm not" - clearly he felt it was time Nico could afford a DNF.
However, going to the grid, Nico had various problems with his steering wheel so had it changed at least once. It didn't help, so he couldn't get away for the warm up lap - during which Kobayashi pulled off (counting as a DNS or did not start result) - meaning that Rosberg had to start from the pits (if at all) rather than 2nd.
Once the race was under way, Hamilton pulled away pretty comfortably, with Vettel and Alonso both jumping Ricciardo. Jenson gained a few places, but McLaren nearly had a two car collision - they were lucky to get away with only the loss of positions to Williams.
Most runners were roughly status quo until a few changes around the pitstops, except Rosberg who was still nursing problems until his retirement on lap 14.
Then on lap 30 Sutil squeezed Perez against the barrier going into Turn 8 - this left some debris on track and the Safety Car was deployed (as it had been in the first six Singapore GPs) for a good seven laps - including time for lapped cars to overtake, including Perez. The unlapping period would be significant later on for both the Mexican and Force India.
After the Safety Car had returned to the pits, we had an interesting situation where Hamilton still had to change to the Soft tyres, whereas the three drivers behind him (Vettel, Ricciardo and Alonso) had all done their compulsory stints on both sets of tyres. This meant the Brit had to pull out a substantial gap to ensure he would lead or come out close to Vettel when he eventually pitted.
This was when the Mercedes really got going, pulling away a good 3-4 seconds per lap initially - this eventually went down to about a second a lap before the change to soft tyres. When Lewis came out, he was with Ricciardo and a couple of seconds behind Vettel, who would go on to lead a lap for the first time in 2014. Shortly after, Jenson Button pulled over with a car problem and became the fifth retirement, promoting Kimi to 7th.
One lap later, Lewis was on the back of Sebastian and forced his way past with DRS before Turn 7. He never looked back and duly won the race to take the title lead by 3 points.
However, it was all going on behind Massa in 5th as team mate Bottas could no longer manage his tyres, and a pumped Vergne was desperate to overturn another 5 second penalty. He forced his way past, as did everyone else down to Magnussen. Perez followed Vergne through soon after for 7th. Raikkonen, Hulkenberg and Magnussen completed the points ahead of Bottas.
Maldonado had his best race in 12th, ahead of Grosjean, Kvyat, Ericsson, Bianchi and Chilton.
The Singapore GP result leaves only six drivers in contention for the title, they are Hamilton, Rosberg, Ricciardo, Alonso, Vettel and Bottas. It also gives Mercedes a small chance of becoming Constructors champions in Japan, and puts Force India on their best ever points total ahead of McLaren.
Ferrari closed on Williams, and Toro Rosso made good progress with another eight points.
Looking ahead to Japan, depending on certain results we could be down to just three drivers in contention (Hamilton, Rosberg and Ricciardo), and Red Bull could strengthen their 2nd place over Williams and Ferrari.
Neither Mercedes driver has won at Suzuka, but then again neither driver had won in Malaysia, Bahrain or Spain and Hamilton won all three (Austria has been excluded as F1 hadn't raced there since 2003).
Jenson Button will be desperate to impress after his 2011 win, and Kamui Kobayashi would love to do something special in his home race after his 2012 podium with Sauber.
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