The victory brought McLaren driver Hamilton his 11th Grand Prix triumph but his compatriot Button will be equally delighted by finishing one place ahead of team-mate and championship rival Rubens Barichello.  Toyota's Timo Glock secured a career-best second while last year's winner in Singapore, Fernando Alonso, took third in his Renault.

With three races remaining Button improved his championship lead over the Brazilian to 15 points. But it was a night of misfortune for Red Bull as Australian Mark Webber failed to finish, while Sebastian Vettel, a further 10 points behind Barichello in the title race, finished fourth after his race was ruined by a pit lane speeding penalty.

"It was a very, very tough race," said Hamilton. "I got a good start and I just managed to bridge a big enough gap. "I have to say a big thank you to my team for doing a great job as always." McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen claimed seventh place while BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica took eighth.

Hamilton was straight out of the blocks and shot clear of the field while Williams' Nico Rosberg moved ahead of Vettel to take second.

Renault's Romain Grosjean was the first casualty of the race when he was forced to return to the pits early in the race due to a problem with his breaks.

Hamilton, meanwhile, continued to increase his lead at the front as he set the fastest time in lap 10 to climb into a 2.2 second lead ahead of Rosberg.

But Rosberg's challenge was to come to an end when the German made his first pit stop in the 19th lap but was too quick exiting the pits and bounced over the pit-exit line, resulting him being hit with a drive-through penalty.

Force India's Adrian Sutil and BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld, who had started from the pitlane after being relegated to the back of the grid when his car was found to be underweight following qualifying, were then involved in a collision that ended both their races.

That brought the safety car out and Button profited, re-emerging in eighth after he, Alonso and Kovalainen had made a pit stop,

Midway through the race, Vettel had begun to make his challenge for the lead and after 35 laps he was just eight tenths of a second behind Hamilton, waiting to pounce on any error.
 But instead it was the German who committed a costly error when he entered the pits for his final stop on lap 40. Vettel re-emerged in seventh place but was found to have driven too fast in the pit-lane and was hit with a drive-through penalty as a result.

From then on the race was Hamilton's to lose and though Glock had climbed up to second he was over eight seconds behind the race leader with three laps remaining.

As a result Hamilton calmly drove out the remaining laps to comfortably claim victory.