Red Bull carried over their imperious form displayed at Korea
into Saturday’s qualifying session, Vettel securing pole position by less than
a tenth of a second from Webber. McLaren appeared to be the Anglo-Austrian team’s
closest challengers, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button sharing row two between
them, with Ferrari drivers Alonso and Felipe Massa next up from Kimi Raikkonen’s
Lotus.
As the lights went out on Sunday, Vettel only made a
medicore getaway but was nonetheless able to resist Webber through the first
sequence of bends. Behind, Button made a superior start to Hamilton to take
third position through the first corner, but as the McLaren pair went
side-by-side along the back straight Alonso took advantage of the double slip-stream
to move ahead of Hamilton as the field made their way through the turn 4
hairpin.
Alonso was able to use his impressive top-end speed to make
an easy DRS-assisted pass at the same place on Button on lap 4, but by this stage the Red
Bull duo were already escaping from the rest of the field – by lap 6, Alonso was already six
seconds away from race leader Vettel. On lap 5, Hamilton passed Button in identical
fashion to Alonso, with Massa and Raikkonen forming an orderly queue behind the
seeming off-the-pace Briton.
With tyre wear looking to be fairly minimal around the Buddh
International Circuit, all the leading runners opted to make just one pit-stop. While Vettel continued to press home his advantage at the head of the field, Alonso had gradually been catching Webber during the first stint. By the
time both had made their one and only stops to switch from soft to hard
compound tyres (on laps 29 and 30 respectively), the gap between them was down
to less than a second.
Webber was able to ease away from Alonso once more at the
start of the second stint, but after another ten or so laps it became apparent
that the number 2 Red Bull was struggling with a KERS failure. Alonso duly
closed in on his adversary once again, and was finally able to wrest second
position away from Webber along the back straight with the help of DRS on lap
48.
Vettel by this stage had a lead in the order of a dozen
seconds from championship rival Alonso, but some late drama arrived in the form
of an ostensibly damaged floor on board the leading Red Bull: the ‘tea tray’
element of the floor at one stage appeared to sag from the car and scrape along
the tarmac, causing sparks to fly. This didn’t seem to greatly affect Vettel’s
pace however, and the reigning champion held on for a fifth win of the season
by a margin of just under ten seconds.
Second position was a strong return for Alonso having qualified
fifth on a day where the Ferrari was clearly not up to the task of challenging
Red Bull; the erstwhile championship leader now sits 13 points behind Vettel
with 75 left to play for. Webber’s travails appeared to leave him vulnerable to
an attack from Hamilton, who began to close at nearly two seconds per lap initially, but the former was just able to hold off the latter as
the McLaren’s pace faded towards the end of the race.
Fifth place went to Button, who after moving clear of Massa
and Raikkonen enjoyed a fairly uneventful race. Massa was able to keep
Raikkonen frustrated all the way until the first pit-stops, at which point the
Finn was able to overtake the second Ferrari as it left the pits. Massa wasted
no time in taking back sixth place however, blasting by the Lotus along the back
straight with the help of DRS – Raikkonen would be once more stuck behind Massa
until the chequered flag and had to be content with seventh place.
It was another fine performance from Nico Hulkenberg, who
powered past Sergio Perez in the first stint before going on to secure a
creditable eighth place finish for Force India on ‘home’ ground. Ninth fell to
Romain Grosjean, who was one of the few runners to start the race on the hard
tyre, while the final point went the way of Bruno Senna for Williams,
overtaking teammate Pastor Maldonado and Nico Rosberg in a competitive showing
by the Brazilian.
Rosberg crossed the line in a disappointing eleventh place
in another difficult day for Mercedes - Michael Schumacher in the sister car had
a dismal afternoon after sustaining a right-rear puncture having been clipped
by Jean-Eric Vergne’s Toro Rosso at the first corner of the race. The seven-time champion later caught the
attention of the stewards for ignoring blue flags before the team elected to
retire the car a couple of laps from home.
It was a popular day for right-rear punctures, as Perez
suffered one after turning across the bows of the other Toro Rosso of Daniel
Ricciardo having made an early first pit-stop; the suspension damage caused
would eventually lead to the Mexican’s retirement. Maldonado also suffered a
similar fate at the hands of Kamui Kobayashi, although the Venezuelan driver would
survive the encounter and finish sixteenth.
Paul di Resta could do more than twelfth place in an
anonymous day for the Scot at the wheel of the second Force India, finishing
ahead of Ricciardo, Kobayashi and Vergne. Behind Maldonado finished the
Caterhams of Vitaly Petrov and Heikki Kovalainen, who had a late KERS problem,
the Marussia pair of Charles Pic and Timo Glock as well as Narain Karthikeyan’s
HRT on home soil. The sister car of Pedro de la Rosa retired mid-distance as
his car spun into the barriers at turn 4 due to brake failure.
Vettel’s performance was certainly ominous as far as the
title is concerned, but the late (if ultimately inconsequential) drama
concerning the Red Bull’s floor comes as a timely reminder that anything can
happen in the remaining three races. Whilst Adrian Newey’s cars have been quick,
their reliability has hardly been bullet-proof; Alonso simultaneously proved
that the Ferrari is still capable of showing some impressive race pace. Don’t
write off the wily Spaniard just yet.
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