Di Resta hails "best day in F1" as Vettel and Alonso leave Hamilton frustrated PAUL Di Resta hailed his "best day in Formula One so far" following a career-high fourth place in Singapore. Starting from sixth on the grid, Di Resta was aided by retirements to the front-row duo in McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Pastor Maldonado in his Williams. But, over the course of the full two-hour race, Di Resta did not put a wheel out of place around the Marina Bay Street Circuit. "This is a fantastic result for me personally," Di Resta said. And we've done it on merit over the whole weekend, and this is the most demanding and toughest race for a car and driver so fourth place is a great team result and my best day in Formula 1 so far. "This result is just what we needed for our fight in the championship and I want to say a massive "thank you" to the boys in the garage who have put in a huge effort, as always." Following a second safety car spell, after Michael Schumacher ran into the back of Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne, Di Resta even managed to keep pace with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso late on. "I was very close to Alonso in the closing stages, but was just missing the pace to really challenge him for the podium," Di Resta added. It's fourth place, and, as long as one day it goes one better, the dream is to get on to the podium, and then the dream will be to get a win. Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, has vowed he will "fight until the end" following yet another retirement this season that denied him "an easy victory." Two wins in the last three races had firmly thrust Hamilton back into the hunt for the world championship. And, after grabbing pole position, Hamilton appeared on course to make it three victories in four races only for his McLaren to suffer a gearbox failure on lap 23 when leading. Instead of further closing the gap to title leader Alonso, Hamilton was left to contemplate a run of four retirements in the last seven grands prix, and three in the last five. With Alonso finishing third, Hamilton trails the Spaniard by 52 points. In taking the chequered flag for the second successive year in Singapore, reigning champion Sebastian Vettel is now Alonso's closest challenger, 29 points behind. Vettel's victory was allowed to stand despite a visit to the stewards alongside runner-up Jenson Button after it appeared the 24-year-old brake tested the Briton during the first of two safety car periods, almost causing a collision. The stewards decided no action needed to be taken, allowing Vettel to celebrate the 23rd win of his career and move within striking distance of Alonso. As for Hamilton, the white flag is far from being raised. he said: "It's heartbreaking not to have finished the race because I was cruising, managing the gap and I had the pace. It should have been an easy win, but then I started to experience a problem with the gears. I told the team and they told me I should be able get to the end of the race, but then I lost third gear, then all the gears went. Looking ahead to the remaining six races, Hamilton added: "The good thing we can take away from this weekend is we have extremely good pace and, as a result, we can really attack. It's going to be hard to close the gap to guys like Fernando and Sebastian, especially when they keep finishing race after race. But I'll never give up. There are six more races, and I need to go and win all six.