Max Verstappen won the season opener as Red Bull registered a dream start with a one-two finish at the Bahrain GP.
Lewis Hamilton took his 98th career pole position in qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday
Vettel, now 17 points behind the Briton after starting eight ahead, led from pole position until rain caused chaos in the closing laps, with the German skidding into the barriers in front of his home fans.
Formula One is feeling a fresh wave of optimism under its new owners, while Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso are the two most popular drivers, according to an extensive fan survey released on Friday.
Force India owner Vijay Mallya on Tuesday said he would consider promising motor race driver Karun Chandhok for his Formula One team if he can finish inside top three in the GP2 Series for a couple of years.
Newly crowned Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton will compete with European Ryder Cup star Rory McIlroy and Real Madrid's Gareth Bale to clinch the BBC 2014 Sports Personality of the Year award.
Ferrari's Charles Leclerc qualified fourth with Mexican Sergio Perez, Verstappen's closest title rival and team mate but a massive 151 points adrift after 15 of 22 rounds, fifth and 0.773 off his team mate's pace.
Attendance at the Singapore Grand Prix, one of the most popular races on the calendar fell this year, hurt by a slowdown in the local and global economy.
Hamilton won Formula Three and GP2 (now Formula Two) championships with Vasseur's ART team in 2005 and 2006 before making a spectacular Formula One debut with McLaren in 2007.
Stewards said in a statement that the Briton had escaped a more severe sanction "due to the fact that no clear instruction was given to the driver on where he should park the car after qualifying".
Given how well Hamilton drove last weekend to win the Styrian GP in Austria, few would bet against the British driver securing an eighth success
Lewis Hamilton edged his Mercedes team mate on his final flying lap to secure pole position for the Singapore Grand Prix on Saturday, the Briton crossing the line just 0.007 seconds ahead of the German.
Lewis Hamilton will have to get past Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg if he is to secure his third Formula One world championship at the US Grand Prix on Sunday.
Formula One's struggling teams played down talk of a possible boycott of Sunday's U.S. Grand Prix on Friday as argument over division of the sport's revenues grew more heated on Friday.
'I still need to beat all the opposition and Lewis, always need to reckon with him because with a bit of luck and safety cars at the right moment there is no reason why he can't come from far back and through the grid'
F1 stewards exempted Lewis Hamilton from a jewellery ban at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Friday after accepting he risked disfigurement if a nose piercing was removed.
Germany's Nico Rosberg put Mercedes on pole position for Sunday's Japanese Formula One Grand Prix with championship-leading teammate Lewis Hamilton joining him on the front row.
Formula One leader Max Verstappen celebrated a record-equalling ninth successive victory on Sunday after beating the rain to win a chaotic and red-flagged Dutch Grand Prix for the third year in a row.
Force India driver Paul di Resta has said that his side can stun the likes of Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton this year by clinching the Formula One title.
That was only the 12th time that a driver had started that low and won.
Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton has insisted that he would "take it like a man" if he loses the title to his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg. Hamilton is 33 points behind the German with only 100 still available in the remaining four races, starting with the US Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas on Sunday. "I will try and take it like a man. You can't win them all. Look at all the world champions in the past that have won championships and lost championships," the Guardian quoted Hamilton as saying.
Mercedes F1 GP's Nico Rosberg won his first Formula One Championship after finishing 2nd in the tight race at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
The past week saw a lot of brilliance in sports. It started with Juventus and Barcelona lighting up the Champions League with their inspiring football and, later in the week, Mercedes' Nico Rosberg stoked the F1 circuit in Spain, capping a brilliant win to cut teammate Lewis Hamilton's lead to 20 points. Rediff.com has this, and many more memorable moments snapped right here.
The front row lockout was a record-equalling 65th for champions Mercedes.
Valtteri Bottas knows he needs to step up his game from last season if he is to have any chance of keeping his place at Mercedes.
Mercedes team mates Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton renew their sometimes hostile rivalry on the floodlit streets of Singapore this weekend at a circuit where mistakes or collisions normally result in race retirement.
The Formula One season has yet to start and the race at the southern circuit is the 10th to be affected by the new coronavirus.
Lewis Hamilton can set more British Formula One records in Brazil this weekend but it is the world championship he wants and that will have to wait.
The Mercedes driver was fastest in every phase of qualifying to take pole with a time of one minute 42.553 seconds, a track record.
The 37-year-old was engaged in a standoff with the FIA in May, after drivers were reminded that wearing jewellery in the cockpit was not allowed for safety reasons, but was given an exemption until Silverstone.
Rosberg had more reasons than one to celebrate his German GP win on Sunday.
Lewis Hamilton's dreams of winning the Italian Grand Prix for the third year in a row, and chalking up his 50th Formula One race victory, went out with the start lights on Sunday.
Valtteri Bottas won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday and retook the Formula One lead from team mate Lewis Hamilton after a fourth successive one-two finish for Mercedes.
Verstappen led from start to finish at Austria's Red Bull Ring, with seven-time world champion Hamilton second for Mercedes.
Sebastian Vettel lost his second-place finish after being disqualified by stewards for a fuel irregularity.
Triple Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton won the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday after a last-lap collision with Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg as they fought for the lead.
In the constructors' standings, Red Bull have 511 points to Ferrari's 376.
IMAGES from the Silverstone F1 GP on Sunday
Hamilton held off a mid-race challenge from Red Bull's Max Verstappen to register a record-equalling fourth triumph at the floodlit Marina Bay Street Circuit track, while Vettel finished third to slip further behind in the title race.
