The multi-car collision happened moments after the start. Off pole position Verstappen made a bad getaway, leaving his Red Bull swamped on either side by the Ferraris of Vettel and Raikkonen. Vettel, seemingly unaware his team-mate was occupying the space between Verstappen’s car and the wall, tried to squeeze the Red Bull as they charged to the first corner.

But the three cars touched, triggering an accident that also included innocent bystander Alonso.

After examining the video evidence and hearing accounts from the three drivers, the stewards declared that ‘no driver was found to have been wholly or predominantly to blame for the incident and will therefore take no further action’.

The melee paved the way for an unlikely win for Lewis Hamilton. The championship leader had gone into the Singapore race expecting it not to favour his Mercedes, a fear which was borne out emphatically in qualifying. A lowly fifth on the grid, Hamilton went into the race looking more towards limiting the damage to his points lead than extracting a result.

As it turned out, the only damage done in Singapore was to his opponents, the chief among them being championship rival Vettel.

Second placed Daniel Riccardo was prevented from challenging Hamilton to some extent by a gearbox issue, even if the Australian dismissed suggestions the mechanical gremlin was the difference between winning and losing.

Valtteri Bottas was third for Mercedes, ahead of Toro Rosso driver Carlos Sainz. Just as fourth was a career-high in F1 for Sainz, the opening lap elimination of three of the top four cars on the grid also paved the way for other drivers to do likewise. Sixth place for Jolyon Palmer was a fillip for the British driver as he approaches the end of his tenure with Renault, and with nothing so far in the table for 2018, while seventh for Stoffel Vandoorne was something for McLaren and Honda to smile about on a weekend that marked the announcement that McLaren would be dumping Honda for Renault power for 2018.