Webber's late surge secures Red Bull 1-2; Alonso's fourth
delays Seb's title coronation until India; Hamilton drops out early after
Vettel.
Sebastian Vettel moved to the brink of his fourth world
title with yet another victory at the Japanese GP - however his route to a
fifth straight win was far removed from recent races as he won a gripping
three-way battle at the front.
Having led every lap of the two previous grands prix from
pole, for much of Sunday's 53-lap race at Suzuka it looked as though Vettel
would be beaten for the first time since July as impressive long-time race
leader Romain Grosjean and Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber ran ahead of him for
half of the grand prix.
However, while Fernando Alonso's position in the top five
meant Vettel's now inevitable championship coronation was never likely to come
before India, the World Campion still fulfilled his part of the prospective
Suzuka title-winning equation by delivering a masterclass in tyre preservation
and controlled speed to make his winning two-stop strategy work.
Grosjean, thanks to a demon start which saw him jump both
Red Bulls into the first corner as Vettel got away slowly and got tangled up
with Lewis Hamilton - who suffered a puncture and soon dropped out of the race
- had looked in the box seat to claim his breakthrough F1 victory.
However, with two RB9s menacing behind him, Red Bull
employed something of a pincer movement as Webber and Vettel ran different pit
strategies.
While Webber, as a result of heavier tyre wear in the first
stint, committed to a three-stopping plan, ensuring he would be the fastest man
on the track at the end but crucially lose him track position, Vettel was able
to run longer first and second stints than the similarly two-stopping Grosjean.
Vettel's tyre management during the second phase in
particular ensured he crucially was able to run a final stint, on hard tyres,
which was eight laps shorter than Grosjean's. Although the Lotus driver did
re-inherit the lead after the German's stop, he was soon caught and overhauled
as Vettel ruthlessly passed at the first opportunity down the pitstraight.
With Vettel thereafter told to preserve his hard tyres to
the end, focus then turned to whether Webber, since pitting and returning to
the track on even fresher medium tyres, could set up a grandstand - and
potentially explosive - intra-team finish and claim a swansong Suzuka victory.
While such a prospect initially seemed possible, Webber
reeling in Grosjean at a fast rate of knots, the Australian took longer to pass
the Lotus than his team-mate. Although he did eventually manage it on the
penultimate lap, Vettel was by then away and gone for his 35th career win.
Although Vettel's fifth straight win was therefore
secured - the first time the 26-year-old has achieved such a sequence -
confirmation of another Drivers' Championship will now likely come in India
after Alonso finished fourth at Suzuka. Vettel now only needs to finish fifth
in two weeks' time to secure the title.
Having qualified down in eighth, Alonso was never in the
hunt for the podium but at least managed to gain some revenge on Nico
Hulkenberg for the Korean GP after finally passing the Sauber driver late on
for the fourth.
Kimi Raikkonen also demoted Hulkenberg, the German
finishing sixth, but the Finn's fifth place couldn't mask the fact that he
finished the best part of 40 seconds behind team-mate Grosjean.
Culled from Sky sports
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