Red Bull clearly appeared to be the car to beat from the
very outset, Vettel and teammate Mark Webber locking out the front row between
them on Saturday. Jenson Button was the closest challenger to the Milton Keynes
cars, but a five-place gearbox penalty meant he would start the race from
eighth. Benefitting were the Saubers, Kobayashi lining up third and teammate
Sergio Perez in fifth just behind Lotus driver Romain Grosjean, whilst Alonso
would have to be content with sixth in a difficult session. Lewis Hamilton was
also struggling with set-up issues, and could do no better than ninth place.
Vettel made the perfect getaway as the lights went out on
Sunday, with Kobayashi getting a great launch from third position to slot into
second place behind the Red Bull. Webber was conversely somewhat slower off the mark, which would end up
proving costly – Grosjean was right behind the Australian as the pack headed
through the first two corners, and the Lotus driver failed to slow sufficiently
to prevent himself shunting Webber into a spin. Both cars were able to continue, but headed for the pits at the end of the lap.
Almost simultaneously, Alonso was also in peril. The Ferrari
driver was stuck between the cars of Raikkonen and the fast-starting Button
heading into the first corner, and moved across on the former. Contact was made
between the rear tyre of Alonso and Raikkonen’s front wing, immediately leading
to a puncture and a terminal trip into the gravel trap at First Curve for the
championship leader.
With Bruno Senna and Nico Rosberg also coming to blows amid
the chaos further down the order, the Safety Car was deployed. Behind Vettel
and Kobayashi, Button had ploughed his way through to third place ahead of
Massa, who ostensibly followed the trail blazed by the leading McLaren. Fifth
was Raikkonen, whose pace appeared not to be too severely compromised by the
contact with Alonso, with Perez holding sixth ahead of Hamilton having run wide
at the first corner.
As the race restarted on lap 4, Vettel wasted no time in stretching
his lead: by lap 8, his cushion over Kobayashi was up to 4 seconds, and by lap
13 the gap stood at 7.5 seconds. The Japanese driver was in turn able to ease
away from Button and Massa until the first round of pit-stops commenced on lap
13, where a later stop by Massa allowed him to jump ahead of both Kobayashi and
Button into second place as the Brazilian’s rivals lost time in traffic.
Meanwhile, Perez relinquished sixth place to Hamilton with a
mistake at the very first corner of the restart, only to regain the place two
laps later with a late, bold pass at the Hairpin. The Brit would re-gain the place
from Perez by dint of a slightly quicker first pit-stop, but the Mexican was
clearly in no mood to defer to the man he will replace at McLaren next year. On
lap 20, he attempted a repeat of his earlier pass at the Hairpin, only to get
out of shape on entry to the corner and spin ignominiously into the gravel as a
result.
By this stage of the race, Vettel’s lead was up to 9
seconds, and it was becoming increasingly unlikely that anybody was to deny the
German his third victory of the season. With Massa pulling away from Kobayashi
into a comfortable second place, the only podium position in doubt was the
final one. In spite of a slightly slower second pit-stop, Button was able to
close the gap from three seconds to just over one as the race entered its final
phase.
Vettel ultimately took the chequered flag with over 20
seconds in hand from Massa, drawing level with the great Juan Manuel Fangio
with a 24th career victory, whilst Massa’s first podium finish since
the Korean Grand Prix of two years ago looks to have assured the Brazilian of
at least one more season with the Scuderia. With the passionate home fans firmly
behind him, Kobayashi responded to the threat from Button excellently,
delivering his first ever podium finish and only the third ever for a Japanese
driver in F1 after Aguri Suzuki and Takuma Sato. Much like Massa, such a result
may be instrumental in Kobayashi securing a fresh contract to remain at Sauber.
Button and Hamilton finished fourth and fifth respectively, which
represented a decent return on a rather lacklustre qualifying session. The
latter McLaren driver was able to secure the position with a brave defence of
his position as he exited the pits – Raikkonen swept around the outside of
Hamilton at First Curve as the McLaren re-joined the race track, only for Lewis
to decisively dive back up the inside at the tighter second corner to claim
fifth place.
Raikkonen could therefore do no more than sixth, with the Lotus
version of double-DRS still yet to be given its maiden race outing. Nico Hulkenberg
took advantage of the first-corner misfortunes of others to take a solid
seventh place for Force India, just ahead of Pastor Maldonado who took his
first points since his win at the Spanish Grand Prix five months ago. Webber,
after pitting at the end of the first lap and only pitting once more
thereafter, managed to salvage ninth place, with compatriot Daniel Ricciardo
staying out of trouble to snatch another well-earned point for Toro Rosso.
Ricciardo was forced to defend tenth place hard from Michael
Schumacher, who started on the back row of the grid after his ten-place penalty
from Singapore was applied. The Mercedes driver, who announced his impending
retirement from the sport at the start of the weekend, made considerable ground
with an alternate strategy, and was unlucky to not claim a point for his
valiant efforts. Twelfth place went to Paul di Resta, who suffered a
clutch problem before the race started, finishing just ahead of the second Toro
Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne whose race was compromised by a three-place blocking penalty on Saturday.
The early contact with Rosberg, who subsequently retired,
forced Senna to change his nose at the end of the first lap; coupled with a
drive-through penalty for being deemed to have caused the collision, the
Williams driver was consigned to a 14th place finish ahead of
Caterham driver Heikki Kovalainen. Just four seconds behind the Finn finished
Timo Glock of Marussia, with Vitaly Petrov (whose progressed was impeded by a
KERS failure and a penalty for ignoring blue flags) and Pedro de la Rosa rounding
out the finishers.
After coming to blows with Webber at the start, Grosjean was
forced to pit for a fresh nose before being handed a ten second stop-go penalty
by way of punishment. Circulating well outside the points, Lotus elected to
retire the car to preserve the gearbox a few laps shy of the finish. Also
failing to see the chequered flag were Charles Pic, whose Marussia suffered
engine failure, and Narain Karthikeyan after his HRT sustained floor damage.
Vettel’s victory was very much reminiscent of his runaway
successes of 2011, and his determination to become only the sport’s third
driver to secure a hat-trick of titles will be more than ever. Alonso was
nothing if not stoic when asked to reflect on his retirement post-race, despite
now holding a slender lead of just four points, but the race pace demonstrated
by Massa however means the title fight is still wide open. Pending updates from
McLaren and Lotus mean neither Lewis Hamilton nor Kimi Raikkonen are quite out
of contention yet, Suzuka reminding us that the complexion of the title fight
can change in an instant.
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