Turkish Grand Prix 2011 – Race Report

Sebastian Vettel cruised to a relatively straightforward third win of the season ahead of his Red Bull teammate Mark Webber in today's Turkish Grand Prix at Istanbul Park. With nearly all the leading runners making four pit-stops, there was simply no opportunity for any of the German's opponents to deny him as he put in a sterling performance at the head of the field.

Vettel continued his unspoilt record of pole positions with another peerless performance in Saturday's qualifying session. Webber joined him on the front row, ahead of an impressive Nico Rosberg for Mercedes who appeared to carry on his good form from China. Lewis Hamilton lined up next for McLaren, ahead of his perennial arch-rival and Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso. Hamilton's fellow Brit and teammate Jenson Button qualified sixth.

At the start of the race, Vettel made up for his lacklustre start last time out by making a solid getaway this time around, leading into Turn 1. Behind, Rosberg took advantage of starting on the clean side of the grid to pass Webber in the run to the first corner, whilst a few corners later, Hamilton ran wide as he also tried to pass the second of the Red Bulls. He fell behind both Alonso and Button into sixth place.

Seventh position was held briefly by Michael Schumacher who had passed Vitaly Petrov's Renault at the start, but the pair made contact at turn 12 at the end of the second lap as the latter tried a daring move down the inside of the former. The seven-time champion was forced to pit to replace his damaged front wing, peeling into the pit lane immediately, while Petrov carried on seemingly unscathed. The Russian however soon fell behind Felipe Massa who was making solid progress up the field after starting from a disappointing tenth place.

Rosberg failed to hold on to second for long as his Mercedes engine proved insufficient to keep a DRS-assisted Webber at bay. The Australian swept into second at turn 12 on the fifth lap, a move replicated two laps later by Alonso who moved into third place. Meanwhile, a heated battle between McLaren teammates Button and Hamilton commenced over fifth place – Hamilton took the position away from Button on the first corner of lap seven, but the more recent champion of the duo got the position back with a similar move on the following lap.

This intra-team squabbling allowed Massa to close on the McLarens – the Brazilian made use of the DRS to deprive his erstwhile championship adversary Hamilton of fifth on lap nine. The pair then became the first of the frontrunners to make their scheduled stops at the end of that lap, but smooth pit-work by the McLaren boys enabled their man to re-take the place, in spite of what some would consider an 'unsafe release' of Massa by the Ferrari mechanics. As it transpired though, no penalty was applied.

One lap later, Webber, Alonso and Rosberg all made their first stops, remaining in the same order in which they entered the pits. With Vettel making his first stop a lap further along, Button temporarily assumed the lead due to his three-stop strategy. He came into the pits at the end of lap 13, but with the competition all on fresher rubber, he slipped down the order to seventh behind Hamilton and Massa.

Rosberg continued his descent down the order when Hamilton made an easy move on the Mercedes pilot thanks to DRS on lap 14, with Massa and Button both following suit on lap 21 as the Ferrari driver seized the initiative into turn 12, along with the McLaren driver two turns later. It was apparent that Rosberg was unable to translate his Mercedes's qualifying pace into a similarly strong race pace, not helped by an unusually early switch to the hard tyre.

Conversely, Alonso found that his Ferrari was performing far better than his fifth place on the grid suggested. After the second round of pit-stops, in which Petrov vaulted up to fifth by making an earlier stop than those around him, Alonso was able to close up to Webber and overtake him with the help of DRS on lap 29. This meant the order became Vettel by a comfortable distance from Alonso, Webber, Hamilton, Petrov, Massa, Button and Rosberg.

The top four positions remained the same after the third round of pit-stops, with Hamilton's margin over the chasing pack large enough to survive an appalling stop during which a wheelnut got stuck, costing the Brit over ten seconds. Rosberg, back on soft tyres for his third stint, was able to move up into fifth after an early stop, whilst Button was able to leapfrog Petrov for sixth after his third and final stop of the race. Just after his stop, Massa ran wide onto the ocean of marbles at the quadruple-apex turn 8 soon after leaving the pits, losing even more time mired amongst several midfield runners.

After their fourth stops, Webber began to close the gap to Alonso and retook second position on lap 51 in almost exactly the same way that he had lost it to the two-time champion earlier. Button had assumed fourth place at this point due to his contrary tyre strategy, but couldn't maintain a particularly quick pace on his aging hard tyres. This meant he slipped behind both Hamilton and Rosberg into sixth in the closing stages of the race.

Back at the front, Vettel, with around thirty seconds in hand from the Alonso-Webber duel, opted for a precautionary fourth stop. He resumed with his lead considerably diminished but still intact, and proceeded to round off the final ten or so laps to claim a well-deserved thirteenth career victory. Webber was able to pull away from Alonso after overtaking the Spaniard for second, completing a one-two finish for Red Bull. Despite losing the runner-up spot, Alonso's third position will be encouraging for a Ferrari team that seemed on the back foot after a sub-par opening three rounds.

Both Hamilton and Rosberg appeared to extract the maximum from their respective cars on their way to fourth and fifth places, whilst Button's three-stop strategy failed to pay dividends, leaving him sixth. Heidfeld came home seventh for Renault in another solid performance, ahead of Petrov with whom he made contact during the race, prompting some uncomplimentary gesticulating from the veteran German as he was pushed towards the pit entrance by his teammate.

Sebastien Buemi for Toro Rosso and Kamui Kobayashi for Sauber completed the points-scorers after both running alternative strategies, with Kobayashi having to start from the very back of the grid after his car conked out during the first qualifying session on Saturday. Massa could do no better than eleventh after suffering a slow fourth stop, finishing just ahead of Schumacher who never really recovered from his early scuffle with Petrov. Adrian Sutil came thirteenth in an unremarkable drive in the Force India, just holding off Sergio Perez who did well to come fourteenth after losing his Sauber's front wing on the opening lap.

Rubens Barrichello came next in another unsatisfactory result for Williams, ahead of Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersauri and Pastor Maldonado in the other Williams who earned a drive-through penalty for pit-lane speeding. The Lotus pair of Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen, the Virgin of Jerome D'Ambrosio and the Hispanias of Narain Karthikeyan and Vitantonio Liuzzi made up the remaining finishers. Paul Di Resta was the only retiree of the afternoon after a hydraulic failure on his Force India, and Timo Glock failed to begin the race at all when his Virgin developed a terminal gearbox fault prior to the start the race.

Vettel has extended his championship lead over Hamilton to 34 with his latest triumph, with Webber just another four behind after his second consecutive podium finish. It would seem that today's race indicates that China may transpire to be but a blip in Vettel dominance – after all, it wouldn't have made a difference whether he took three or four stops, such was the magnitude of his advantage during the race. The emerging pattern appears to be that if Vettel gets the chance to stretch his legs at the front at the start of a race, the chances are that he'll go on to win it in worryingly commanding fashion.

Of course, the points leader's rivals will doubtless be hoping to disprove that theory of mine next time out at the Catalunya circuit in Spain in two weeks' time. Before then though, there'll be next Sunday the second part of last week's 'Where in the World?' article. Hope to see you then.