Motor racing-Unwanted Vergne delivers a timely reminder

By Patrick Johnston SINGAPORE, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Jean-Eric Vergne did his best to boost his chances of being back on the Formula One grid next year with a season's best sixth place for Toro Rosso in Singapore on Sunday despite two penalties. The Frenchman is being replaced by 16-year-old Max Verstappen for 2015, with the team indicating in Singapore that the Dutch driver will get a run in the car during practice at next month's Japanese Grand Prix. Vergne, in his third season, finds himself surplus to requirement at just 24 years old but shone under the Singapore spotlights nonetheless. After a difficult Saturday qualifying session at the Marina Bay street circuit, he catapulted up the grid from his 12th place position on Sunday. He picked up a five second penalty early in his race for twice leaving the track at turn seven but battled back to ninth entering the final laps only to suffer another five second punishment for the same offence. Undeterred, he overtook Force India's Nico Hulkenberg, Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and the Williams of Valtteri Bottas in the final two laps before opening up a large enough gap to swallow the penalty and keep the eight points for sixth place. "It feels great. It was a fantastic race and I'm extremely happy, especially considering the two five second penalties," Vergne said after the joint best result of his career. "I was not good yesterday in qualifying and I made a mistake and I told the team that I was going to make it up today in the race and that's what I've done. "It's a great result. Sixth is like a podium for us. "It's good for me...I need to push for next year. Today I think I showed my potential," he added. The points took Vergne onto 19 for the season, 11 more than his 20-year-old Russian team mate Daniil Kvyat who is staying on with Toro Rosso to partner Verstappen, who turns 17 this month. The total eclipses his previous best return of 16 points in his rookie 2012 season, but Vergne was eyeing more over the closing five races. "I'm really confident we can have a good end of the season together and I'm looking forward to Japan, where we also have some updates. Hopefully we can improve even further," he said. Toro Rosso chief race engineer Phil Charles only had praise for the efforts of his departing driver, who outperformed a disappointing Kvyat in 14th. "We are very, very pleased," he said. "JEV (Vergne) drove an absolutely fantastic race. He had to deal with two five second penalties. He pulled off some brilliant passing moves and he managed to finish more than the five seconds ahead of the seventh placed driver, so he keeps his sixth place. "He did absolutely everything right. He has been due a decent result, because he's been doing a good job this year, but has had more than his share of bad luck." (Editing by Alan Baldwin)