SINGAPORE, Sept 26 - Ferrari's Fernando Alonso held off Sebastian Vettel's hard-charging Red Bull to win an incident-packed Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday and boost his chances of a third Formula One crown.
Championship leader Mark Webber finished third in the second Red Bull to increase his lead from five to 11 points in the standings with four races remaining.
The Australian again rode his luck, emerging unscathed from a collision with McLaren's Lewis Hamilton that forced his title rival to retire.
Webber has 202 points. Alonso moved up to second overall on 191 after successive wins in Monza and Singapore, and Hamilton lies a further nine points adrift in third place.
Vettel sits one point further back and world champion Jenson Button, who finished fourth, rounds out the top five on 177 points. A mere 25 points, the amount awarded for a victory, separates the top five.
"It really was tough. With the safety car problems and the people we were lapping, especially at the end, it was difficult," Alonso told reporters.
"We know how difficult it is to overtake here so I was just not taking any risks."
Alonso won the scandal-tainted inaugural Singapore race for Renault in 2008 after his Brazilian team mate Nelson Piquet crashed deliberately to bring out the safety car and help the Spaniard win.
The safety car was again deployed this time but Alonso, starting aggressively from pole position, drove a brilliant race to hold off Vettel for 61 laps around the floodlit Marina Bay circuit.
After a gruelling, two-hour street fight and an almighty last-lap tussle, the double champion crossed the line 0.2 seconds ahead of the German who had started alongside him on the front row.
HARDEST RACE
"It was very difficult...we knew that, we knew physically it is the hardest race on the circuit perhaps, driving in this humidity for two hours," Alonso said of a race that finished just before the two-hour maximum time limit.
"This win means a lot...to keep the fight in the championship. It seems we can be competitive on any track. So let's see in the remaining races and Forza Ferrari."
Vettel felt he lost the race at the beginning but was still happy with his night's work.
"In the beginning, I had to let him go a little bit. I tried to push him as far as I could into a mistake; he didn't do one and as he said it is too difficult and too risky to overtake so we settle for second," the German said.
"The good news is the car is quick. In the end it is good to get good points for the team. Everything is still open."
Webber, starting the race in fifth place, was the biggest winner of the day after gambling on an early pit stop during the first safety car period after three laps and working his way through the field for a well-earned podium.
"I got caught up a bit, Lewis got a big run on me. There was contact and it's not something you want to do all the time," Webber said of his collision with Hamilton.
"I am very happy with third place here today...the toughest weekend of the year for me."
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