The unstoppable Sebastian Vettel's done it again – the Red Bull-Renault powerhouse has scored a hat trick, edging out Fernando Alonso 32.6 seconds to win the Singapore Grand Prix 2013. (For the record, Kimi Raikkonen, who was manning a Lotus-Renault, finished in third place.)
Vettel now has three Singapore wins under his (seat) belt, although rumblings of discontent from supporters of other teams erupted into sporadic jeers – part and parcel of this testosterone-fuelled, "macho" sport.
Segueing into a decidedly less masculine evening, the post-race bash at the Padang Stage saw a sea of fans from the Rihanna Navy – the pop princess' equivalent of Gaga's Little Monsters.
Decked in the blues and yellows of the Barbados flag, the throng of prepubescents, teenagers and twentysomethings erupted into raucous cheers when the lady of the night emerged from a concealed platform onstage. All told, some 65,000 supporters were at Rihanna's closing night concert – testament to the singer's stellar star power.
From our vantage point, we also spied a lanky, wifebeater-wearing, baseball capped guy surrounded by burly handlers – there were excited whispers all around that sexy crooner Justin Bieber himself was in the house, but the mystery man was quickly whisked away. Something to think about...
Being the beauty obsessives that we are, we immediately zeroed in on Riri's face, which was, as our excited friend memorably hollered out to the consternation of the parent chaperones around, "flawless as F". All eyes were on her eyes, which were heavily fringed with top and bottom falsies and lightly smoked with a taupe shadow.
She paired her sultry eye makeup with glazed, black forest berry lips that popped on the large screen monitors. Her hair, however, was...interesting, to say the least. Closely cropped a la Halle Berry at the front and sides, we overheard titters when Rihanna turned her back to reveal a stringy mullet-inspired "tail" trailing down her glistening back.
Meanwhile, Rihanna's outfit was street style at its most provocative – a loose white Raf Simons Spring 2014 T-shirt dress with daring slits up the side, which she paired with fishnet tights and cream hightop sneakers.
The 90-minute set was a mixed bag of hard-hitting hiphop headbangers like the show-opener, Phresh Out the Runway, as well as universally recognisable ditties like "Umbrella" and "We Found Love". Gyrating and grinding alongside a posse of taut dancers in military-inspired garb, the singer's vocals were extraordinary – strong, unwavering and completely live, at least to our ears.
With this being her first show since 2008, Rihanna told the packed Padang that she missed Singapore, mouthing off at multiple intervals that "[we] were the s---". Towards the end, when the lights dimmed and the sweaty, triumphant star stood under a spotlight and sang her torch anthem "Stay" in an emotional quaver, we're sure we speak for the Rihanna Navy when we say that we wished she would.
For more information, go to www.singaporegp.sg. You can get updates from the Facebook page or Twitter at @F1NightRace.
You can follow Rihanna on her Facebook page, on Twitter at @Rihanna and on Instagram at @Badgalriri.