Six of the Best: F1's test of endurance

The Singapore Grand Prix is typically the longest race of the year, with every running of the race since its inception in 2008 lasting over one hour and 55 minutes - and two editions of the race creeping beyond the two-hour time limit for Formula One Grands Prix.

Singapore has some way to go though to match F1's longest races though, both in terms of time and distance, as evidenced by the six mammoth endurance races detailed below.

2011 Canadian Grand Prix, Gilles Villeneuve Circuit4 hours, 4mins and 39secs

The daddy of them all. Formula One's longest lasting Grand Prix, at 4 hours, 4 minutes and 39 seconds, is also one of its most memorable, with Jenson Button's back-to-front last-gasp victory a wet-weather interrupted safety car-riddled classic.

The tale of the tape is almost as long as the race time itself, with the race initially starting as scheduled at 13:00 local time behind the safety car due to standing water on the circuit. After five laps the safety car peeled off into the pits, but it was quickly re-deployed after a collision between McLaren teammates Button and Lewis Hamilton saw the latter retire with broken suspension.

The race resumed on lap 13, but on lap 19 a severe rainstorm hit the track, and a lap later the safety car was redeployed before the red flag was thrown on lap 26 due to the intensity of the rain.

With the conditions set, proceedings were halted for over two hours until the rain eased at 15:50 local time. The race restarted behind the safety car due to the conditions, and once again almost as soon as the safety car had dived back into the pits it was redeployed, as Button collided with Fernando Alonso's Ferrari at turn three, forcing the Spaniard to retire.

Having pitted with a puncture following the collision with Alonso, eventual race winner Button was 21st and last - before charging through the field to fourth place during the longest green flag period of the race - 16 laps.

A sixth and final safety car period due to debris on the circuit further added to the running time, and closed the field up for a final ten-lap sprint. Having fought past Michael Schumacher's Mercedes and Mark Webber's Red Bull upon the resumption of the race, Button closed to attack the leading Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel as the race ticked past the four-hour mark.

Vettel, who had led the whole race from pole position despite the chaos behind him, made his first mistake of a hitherto dominant season on the final lap, running wide into a half-spin at turn six. Button was through, and took the chequered flag in a record-breaking time.

The six safety car periods (another record) and wet race pace saw a Grand Prix that typically runs at the 90-minute mark last over two hours on-track, with the red flag delay for the weather accounting for the mammoth total duration. Button himself took five pit stops (a record for a race winner) plus a drive-through penalty, adding to the madcap nature of proceedings.

In response to F1's longest race, a rule was introduced for the 2012 season that limited the duration of a suspended race to four hours - a rule that, had it been active in Canada, would have denied Formula One one of its most famous and dramatic race conclusions.

1951 - 1960 Indianapolis 500, Indianapolis Motor Speedway500 miles - 3 hours, 57mins and 38secs

The length of a Grand Prix race is defined as the smallest number of complete laps that exceeds 305 km (189.5 miles) (with the exception of Monaco, which has a race length of 260.5 km (161.9 miles), with fluctuations in race length determined by the speed and characteristics of individual circuits.

Speed could be said to be the defining characteristic of Indianapolis, with the Brickyard's status as the world's original cathedral of speed unchanged over 109 years of racing around the iconic 2.5-mile circuit.

For ten seasons in Formula One's formative years, the Indianapolis 500 formed a part of the championship - although noble aspirations of creating a truly global series foundered as the American and European racing circuits largely ignored each other, leaving Indy as something of a standalone event during its years on the F1 calendar (although Lotus would lead a belated F1 charge during the 1960s, eventually winning the race with Jim Clark and Graham Hill).

In terms of total race distance, the Indy 500 remains unparalleled in F1 history, with the 500 miles completely dwarfing the contemporary average of 190 miles.

Unsurprisingly, given the comparatively low average speeds of racing cars in the early 1950s, the 500 miles were also a mammoth in terms of time. The 1951 Indy 500, won by Lee Wallard, ran to 3h 57m 38.05s, with an average speed of 126.2 mph. By the end of the decade and the final championship-counting Indy 500 the race duration had come down to 3h 36m 11.36s, with the average speed having increased to 138.8 mph.

As an aside, the fastest Indy 500 in history was run in 2013 in a time of 2h 40m 3.42s, with an average speed of 187.4 mph. By any barometer, be it time, distance, laps or average speed, the Indy 500 remains in a league of its own and dwarfs anything the F1 circuit can throw up either now or in the intertwined distant past - adhering proudly to the age-old American maxim that bigger really is better.

1951 French Grand Prix, Reims3 hours, 22mins and 11secs

Indianapolis was far from the only circuit hosting long-haul races in Formula One's formative years though. Throughout the 1950s Grands Prix regularly exceeded three hours, a throwback to the 'point-to-point' style endurance racing of the pre-war era.

Indy's 500-mile length would remain unsurpassed, but due to the circuit's oval nature the distance was typically covered in double-quick time. Many other circuits with more complex configurations would deliver shorter race distances, but almost equally lengthy running times on the stopwatch.

The longest non-Indy race in terms of pure distance was the 1951 French Grand Prix, run over 373.96 miles, or 77 laps of the notorious Reims circuit.

Like many of F1's original destinations, Reims was a road circuit - a sprint along country roads in a natural triangle-esque configuration between three villages: Virage du Geuex, Garenne and Thilois. At 4.8 miles, the circuit was long by today's standards - but not a patch on the lap length of the original Spa or Nurburgring Nordschllefe.

The 1951 edition of the French GP at Reims was especially notable for several reasons however. The record race distance was covered in a time of 3h 22m 11.0s, but two other records were also set that day.

Juan-Manuel Fangio had qualified on pole position, but his Alfa Romeo developed an early misfire - forcing the Argentine into the pits. When Fangio's teammate Luigi Fagioli came in for his fuel stop, the team ordered their two drivers to swap cars. Fangio rejoined well down the order, but fuel stops and reliability issues for the Ferraris allowed the Maestro to sweep home to victory.

Fangio and Fagioli shared the win, the first of three occasions on which two drivers would be co-credited with a GP victory after sharing a car. Fagioli, at 53, was and will likely always be Formula One's oldest winner - an appropriate enough record for Formula One's longest non-Indianapolis race.

2010 Korean Grand Prix, Korean International Circuit2 hours, 48mins and 20secs

Before Canada 2011, the longest race in the modern era took place at the inaugural Korean GP in 2010. The key regulatory reason for the length of the race was a rule introduced in 2005, which would see the timekeeping system continue to tick over in the event of a red flag. The knock-on effect of this rule change was to eliminate the possibility of aggregate two-part races, most recently seen at the 1994 Japanese GP. The 2007 European GP had been the first race to deploy the new rule, running to 2h 6m, but Korea's debut officially became the longest race in decades when it drifted towards the three hour mark.

In many ways Korea's was a similar tale to events in Montreal, with the new vogue for suspending wet weather races rather than driving on regardless as would have happened in less regulated times or abandoning the event as most recently happened at Malaysia in 2009 enforced.

If the pattern was similar, so too were the specifics, with the early race running order dictated by teeming rain, a ten-minute delay, three laps behind the safety car, red flag, a 49-minute delay and 13 further laps behind the safety car (during which time the track dried sufficiently for intermediate running) before the race finally got underway on lap 17.

Two further safety car periods, one for Mark Webber's collision with Nico Rosberg and a further clash between Timo Glock and Sebastien Buemi, only added to the sluggish pace, and by the end of the race the field had a new challenge to deal with: impending darkness.

The local start time of 15:00 allowed for the race to comfortably conclude within daylight hours barring unforeseen circumstances, but the final laps saw Fernando Alonso lead the field home in a murky, cloudy twilight, with camera flashes visibly illuminating the scene the Ferrari crossed the line in a uniquely nocturnal gloaming for a positively retro finishing time of 2h 48m 20.810s.

1954 German Grand Prix, Nurburgring Nordschleife3 hours, 45mins and 8secs

No discussion of endurance racing in Formula One is complete without mentioning the original Nurburgring Nordschliefe. At 14.173 miles, the circuit remains easily the longest to have hosted a Formula One Grand Prix, and it's a racetrack as renowned for its length and 154 corners as for its inherent danger in its original format.

The original format of the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring was 18 laps of the Nordschleife circuit, but for 1954 this was raised to 22 laps to bring the race in line with the 500km benchmark for race distance used by the majority of Formula One races at the time. 22 laps equated to 311 miles and 3,388 corners, with a run time well in excess of three and a half hours for the 1950s-era F1 machinery.

The race ran to 22 laps for four years from 1954, with the first edition won by Juan-Manual Fangio in a then-record race run time of 3h 45m 45.8s. This would remain the longest non-Indianapolis race in terms of time until the Canadian GP in 2011. Unlike Montreal however, the running time consisted of constant racing, a unique test of concentration and reliability around the relentlessly undulating and winding circuit.

Fittingly for such an extraordinary challenge, the great Fangio would bookend the 22-lap era with victories. While his 1957 German GP victory has become the stuff of legend, the first was marred by tragedy as fellow Argentine Onofre Marimon suffered a fatal accident in practice - becoming the first fatality at a Formula One World Championship race meeting.

As in 1957, the story of the race centred on the battle between Fangio and Mike Hawthorn - but this time it was all about the Englishman and his Ferrari's attempted pursuit of the Argentine's Mercedes. After inheriting teammate Jose Frolian Gonzalez' car early in the race, Hawthorn chased Fangio relentlessly, but it was a pursuit in vain as the Maestro held on to take a lights to flag victory by 1m 36.5s.

Fangio's 1957 win would be the last of the great Nurburgring epics, with a shortened race distance of 15 laps from 1958 taking almost a third of the distance - but certainly none of the danger - away from on of Formula One's greatest challenges.

1950 - 1967 Monaco Grand Prix, Monte Carlo100 laps

Even the shortest of racetracks can harbor aspirations towards races of epic scale. The Monaco Grand Prix circuit has remained almost unchanged since the first running of the race in 1929, but the length of the race has fluctuated - with the original Monaco GP formation used between 1950 and 1967 lasting a round 100 laps.

In actuality, 100 laps was still only just over 200 miles, so in terms of total race distance and time the event was unremarkable by Formula One endurance terms - but the 100 lap barrier has only been matched by the Indy 500 across Grand Prix history.

Given that the 100-lap format lasted over a period of 17 years (although with several gaps - Monaco's unbroken stint on the F1 calendar dates back to 1955), it offers a fascinating insight into the technological progression of machinery across the era. The 1950 race, won by Nino Farina, lasted an exhausting and punishing 3h 13m. This run time would be reduced to 2h 34m by the time of the 1967 race, won by New Zealander Denny Hulme for Brabham.

After qualifying fourth, Hulme inherited the lead following some frenetic early dicing between the Kiwi, Jackie Stewart and Lorenzo Bandini. Stewart's retirement on lap 14 gifted Hulme a lead he would never yield, although the race was overshadowed by the fiery fatal accident of Bandini 18 laps from the finish as he gave hard chase to Hulme.

The consequences of such a needless tragedy were numerous. Straw bales, which had helped fan the flames, were banned from Grand Prix circuits. The development of fireproof overalls for drivers and marshals was accelerated. The harbor chicane was also tightened to reduce speeds along the waterfront ahead of the 1968 race. In an endurance sense, never again would the Monaco GP run to 100 laps, with the race duration shortened to a more sensible 80 laps from 1968 onwards.