Sebastian Vettel finally wrapped up the 2011 Formula One title
after finishing in third position in today’s Japanese Grand Prix. Jenson Button
did all he could to delay Vettel’s coronation by taking his third win of the
year in fine style, but the German simply did all that was required to become the
sport’s newest youngest-ever double world champion, which was merely to finish
in the top ten. Fernando Alonso took another podium finish with second and looked
like threatening Button in the closing stages, but the Brit was able to hang on
to take victory.
Vettel was able to maintain his Red Bull team’s faultless
qualifying record by the slimmest of margins on Saturday, with the McLarens of
Button and Lewis Hamilton next up. The latter only had to chance set one lap
time after he missed his chance to begin another before the session time
expired, somewhat compromising his grid position. Hamilton was joined on the
second row by Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, while the second Italian car of Alonso
lined up fifth from Mark Webber in the second Red Bull.
As the race began, Vettel’s getaway was inferior to that of
Button, who began to saunter up the inside of the Red Bull. To stem the Brit’s
advance, Vettel sliced decisively to the right, forcing Button to lift the
throttle and lose a position to Hamilton in the process. Button later
complained of Vettel’s start-line tactics to his team on the radio, but the
stewards opted to take no further action. Massa, Alonso and Webber all held
their positions in the meantime, but local driver Kamui Kobayashi squandered
his best-ever grid position of seventh as he bogged down badly at the start –
to the dismay of thousands of Japanese fans, he ended the first lap in twelfth.
As per usual, Vettel began to make headway at the front of
the pack, but on this occasion his closest pursuer Hamilton was able to
maintain the gap at around two-and-a-half seconds. Button was around the same
distance again behind in third, with the Ferrari pair of Massa and Alonso in
close formation slightly further down the road. On the first corner of lap 6,
Alonso made a rather straightforward pass on his teammate to move into fourth, immediately
putting distance between himself and Massa and closing the gap to Button ahead.
Button was however engaging in some gap-closing of his own
as the sister McLaren of Hamilton began to suffer considerably from tyre wear.
The 2009 champion didn’t take long to take away second place from his
predecessor at the Spoon Curve on lap 8, though it became apparent that
Hamilton was also the victim of a slow puncture. He didn’t lose too much time
as he pitted at the end of the lap for a fresh set of soft tyres, but he eventually
rejoined behind Alonso after the Spaniard made his first stop two laps later.
Vettel and Button meanwhile held on to their positions after pitting for new
soft tyres on laps 9 and 10 respectively.
Not long after pitting however was it that Vettel’s tyres also
began to wear at a faster rate than had been hoped for. Button was therefore able
to close to within a second of the leader within ten laps, whilst Alonso made
use of his younger tyres to get away from Hamilton and consolidate third. In
fact, Hamilton soon found himself being chased down by the other Ferrari of
Massa, whose later first stop meant his tyres were in far better shape than
Hamilton’s. The duel reached its climax as Massa attempted a move around the
outside of the Casio Triangle on lap 21; light contact ensued and the Brazilian
lost a small piece of bodywork in the process. Not willing to prolong the battle,
Hamilton made for the pit-lane immediately after.
He was not the first man to have made his second stop though
as Button had made his a lap earlier and Vettel a lap before that. In fact,
such were Vettel’s tyre troubles that Button emerged from the pit-lane ahead of
him and assumed the lead of the race once the other front-runners had all been
back to the pits. The gap between Button and Vettel remained around the one
second-mark until the Safety Car was scrambled on lap 25 to allow the marshals to remove the
piece of debris caused by the Hamilton-Massa incident as well as another that
arose from a minor clash between Webber and the yet-to-stop Mercedes of Michael
Schumacher.
Things got underway once more on lap 28, with Button backing
the pack up considerably before making good his escape from the rest of the
field. Vettel in fact was losing ground to Alonso in third, and ultimately fell
behind after the duo switched to medium tyres for their third and final
pit-stops of the race: again, in spite of pitting earlier than his rival,
Vettel surprisingly lacked the sheer pace to stave off the challenge to his
position. He did catch back up to Alonso thereafter, making several attempts to
re-capture second place at the first corner with the help of DRS, but some
robust defending from Alonso meant that these attempts were to no avail.
Vettel would thus have to be content with third, but up
ahead it appeared Alonso was anything but content with second place. He began
to catch race leader Button at a rate of around a second per lap, much as the
Brit had done to Vettel last time out at Singapore. Also like Singapore though,
it transpired that the race leader had enough in hand to keep the pretender at
bay, and Button clinched a finely-judged and well-deserved third win of the
season. Alonso still drove excellently to take second place for Ferrari, whilst
third was more than enough for Vettel to be crowned champion in 2011.
The second Red Bull of Webber trailed across the line in a
lonely fourth position, some fifteen seconds ahead of Hamilton whose pace was
inexplicably lacklustre after his second stop. Schumacher’s long middle stint,
which saw him briefly lead the way at one stage, allowed him to finish in sixth
ahead of Massa who once again was outclassed by Alonso despite having
qualifying ahead of him. Sergio Perez drove a remarkable race in the face of
flu and a lowly grid position of seventeenth – a combination of making one less
pit-stop and the Safety Car allowed him to take a brilliant eighth place for
Sauber.
Vitaly Petrov went some way to putting his Renault team’s
disastrous showing at Singapore in the past with ninth place, while Nico
Rosberg stole the final point after a spirited charge on an alternate strategy
from the back row of the grid. The strategies of the Force India pairing of
Adrian Sutil and Paul Di Resta were severely hampered by the Safety Car,
meaning they only finished eleventh and twelvth ahead of the second Sauber of Kobayashi
who disappointingly never recovered from his poor start. Pastor Maldonado had
an unremarkable run to fourteenth for Williams ahead of Toro Rosso’s Jaime
Alguersauri and Renault’s Bruno Senna.
The other Williams driver of Rubens Barrichello did little
to help his case for staying on at Williams next year by finishing down in
seventeenth, ahead of the Lotus pairing of Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli.
Next were the Virgins of Timo Glock and Jerome D’Ambrosio, followed by the
Hispanias of Daniel Ricciardo and Vitantonio Liuzzi. Sebastien Buemi was the
only retirement of the event thanks to his front-right wheel parting company
with the rest of his Toro Rosso shortly after his first pit-stop – not the
first time such a gaffe has been made by the pit-crew of the Faenza-based team
this year.
Now Vettel has confirmed what we just about knew arguably as
far back as July, we can focus purely on enjoying the final four races of the
season. For much of the race, the top six drivers were all covered by a window
of less than ten seconds, indicating the performance parity of the three
leading teams in race trim. Button, Alonso and Vettel are all on top form,
whilst their respective teammates all still have a point to prove before the
year is out: that should mean we’re in for some more thrilling races in 2011
yet. Let battle commence.
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