Hamilton stretches lead

LEWIS Hamilton stretched his lead over Felipe Massa to seven points with his third place at the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday, but said there is still a long way to go in the title race.

The 23-year-old Briton now has 84 points to Massa's 77 with three races to go in Japan, China and Brazil.

Robert Kubica in the BMW Sauber has 64, Kimi Raikkonen in the second Ferrari is on 57 and Nick Heidfeld, also in a BMW Sauber, has 56, and they are theoretically still in the drivers' world championship hunt.

But the title is the McLaren driver's to lose with Ferrari's Massa finishing in 13th and outside the points in the inaugural Formula One night race here.

'I enjoyed driving here and I'm pretty happy,' said Hamilton, who started second on the grid behind Massa.

'It was a tough weekend but we got some good points.'

'It was all about scoring points. We came here with a one point lead and saw that the Ferrari's were competitive and would be tough to beat.'

'Fortunately the race had a couple of incidents.'

While there is now a seven point gap between the two rivals, Hamilton said he was not getting ahead of himself, pointing to Massa's disastrous pit stop as an example of what can easily go wrong.

Massa was leading when he was given the green light in the pits with the fuel pipe still attached. He drove off, knocking a mechanic over, with the crew chasing after him.

He ended up sitting in his car at the end of the pit lane while his team wrestled to the pull the hose free. He was given a drive through penalty and rejoined in 18th place.

'Moving forward we will approach the remaining races the same as we have this weekend,' said Hamilton.

'We don't want to get ahead of ourselves as you can see the sort of things that can happen.'

'I'm just happy to have a podium finish in the first Singapore night race. I have no doubt that we have a competitive package to compete with the Ferraris.'

The next Grand Prix is in Japan.