Vettel romps to second Suzuka win (Japanese Grand Prix review)
Sebastian Vettel continued his love affair with the Suzuka circuit with an emphatic win from pole position.
He led home team mate Mark Webber as Red Bull dominated the Grand Prix, strengthening their position in the constructors’ championship.
The race got off to a dramatic start as four cars crashed within a few hundred metres of the start.
Vitaly Petrov made contact with Nico Hülkenberg, then Felipe Massa cut across the first corner and slammed into Vitantonio Liuzzi.
That brought out the safety car which picked up Vettel, who had held the lead at the start, followed by the fast-starting Robert Kubica.
But the Renault driver’s race wasn’t to last much longer. His right-rear wheel detached from the car, forcing him to retire.
That promoted Webber to second ahead of Fernando Alonso, followed by the McLarens of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton.
More gearbox gremlins for Hamilton
The top five finished in that order but not before McLaren had mixed up the order a little. Button stayed out a long time, having started the race on the hard tyres, and briefly took over the lead after the others had pitted.
The Red Bulls caught him but, knowing he still had to pit, held back. Alonso could do little to reduce their lead even as he came under pressure from Hamilton, who picked up speed after switching to the hard tyres, getting out of Button’s slipstream and quickly passing Kamui Kobayashi.
But Hamilton’s hopes of taking on Alonso ended when he lost third gear. He was left to finish the race using just fourth gear and higher, leaving him struggling around the slower corners, particularly the hairpin. That was where Button eventually passed his team mate after his late change to soft tyres.
Michael Schumacher arrived home in sixth place after spending most of the race stuck behind his team mate. At one point he was told “there are no team orders, but Nico knows to be sensible”.
Rosberg had already made his pit stop during the early safety car period and lost time after failing to pass Sebastien Buemi following the restart.
He stayed ahead of Schumacher until he suffered a similar failure to Kubica six laps from home. Unfortunately for Rosberg it happened at the Dunlop corner, sending him crashing into the barriers.
Kobayashi on fire at home
It promoted Kobayashi to a very hard-fourth seventh place achieved with a string of gutsy overtaking moves. Among the drivers he scalped, most with very late-braking overtaking moves at the hairpin, were Jaime Alguersuari, Adrian Sutil and then Alguersuari again.
The second time Alguersuari made Kobayashi go the long way around the outside, and gave him a shove at the exit of the corner, failing to keep him behind and succeeding only in damaging his own car.
Kobayashi was one of few drivers to start on hard tyres and picked off Alguersuari for the second time after changing to softs. He then sized up and passed Rubens Barrichello and team mate Nick Heidfeld – the latter getting well out of Kobayashi’s way at his favourite overtaking spot.
Kobayashi’s victims followed him home – Heidfeld, Barrichello, Buemi and Alguersuari. In 12th place was Heikki Kovalainen, the highest finishing position for a new team so far, which all-but guarantees Lotus the coveted tenth place in the constructors’ championship.
Jarno Trulli was 13th ahead of Timo Glock, the only Virgin driver to take the start after Lucas di Grassi had a bizarre and as-yet unexplained crash at 130R on his way to the grid.
Webber could do nothing about Vettel – but he could stop him from claiming the fastest lap, setting the best time on the last lap of the race. But Vettel won the war, beating Webber home for the third race in a row to move within 14 points of him in the drivers’ championship.
2010 Japanese Grand Prix
- Force India pair expect busy Friday
- Technical review: Japanese Grand Prix
- Tom Hitchings watches the Japanese GP at Suzuka
- Massa pleased by di Montezemolo’s support
- Hamilton takes heart from McLaren pace
- Mercedes admit missed opportunity to keep Schumacher in front of Rosberg
- Alonso says five drivers can still win title
- 2010 Japanese Grand Prix: the complete F1 Fanatic race weekend review
- Who was the best driver of the Japanese Grand Prix weekend? (Poll)
- Dominant win for Vettel piles pressure on Webber (Red Bull race review)
Image © Red Bull/Getty images
Les said on 10th October 2010, 19:42
Yeah Alex Bkk I love the pic! From the first glance it looks like Vettel is giving the Suzuka sign the middle finger!
US_Peter (@us_peter) said on 10th October 2010, 20:04
Haha! Excellent choice of words Keith! :-)
That’s particularly amusing considering his main sponsor is スカルプＤ, aka SuKaRuPu-D, aka Scalp-D shampoo. The logo even looks like it says Scalped: http://scalpd-no1.up.seesaa.net/image/imgS.jpg
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 10th October 2010, 20:43
Ha! That never occurred to me :-)
Electrolite said on 11th October 2010, 1:43
One word. KOBAYASHI.
cheers said on 11th October 2010, 2:29
You have to ask yourself whether Vettel could have overtaken Button if he needed to? At one point Alonso was doing purples closing on Webber when the RBR’s were gapped at 2s each to stay out of the Macca and each other’s dirty air. If Alonso had a bit more pace or Button a bit less it would have got interesting.
I’m still seeind Vettel hard on the kerbs in comparison to Webber for not much more in lap time and thinking that it could be a factor again in coming races. It’s his brakes blowing up he has to worry about when he does that by the look of past incidents. He should have learnt from Couldthard’s problems pushing Newey RBR cars too hard (and Webber in the 1st Newey year).
Dave Blanc said on 11th October 2010, 3:26
Please please please Mark Webber beat Vettel. For me it’s a 2 horse race now. The picture of Vettel on this story sums up my distaste for him.
Can you imagine if he wins the WDC this year and they play the highlights of the season which would HAVE to include the fist waiving at Webber despite him crashing into Webber, the moaning on the radio to his team, the ridiculous arm waving down the pit-lane when he got that drive-thru penalty.
No more finger wagging Mr Vettel – you should have won this championship mid season. Put the Red Bull in the hands of a Hamilton, Alonso or Kubica and it would have all been over by now. Hell, Button would be a couple of wins ahead by now as well!!!!
Take a reality check buddy – you aint all that.
charlieboy said on 11th October 2010, 7:33
Will Hamilton have to take another grid penalty for changing gearbox in the next race?
Does he need to change it or can it be repaired?? :S
Jason said on 11th October 2010, 9:22
:-0 You right Dave, if that RBR was in Hamilton’s hands….This season would have been long over.
We really need the front running cars to be relatively on par.
This year, just like last year… The car and NOT the driver will win the WDC. And that’s just BORING!
chemakal said on 11th October 2010, 12:12
Mr. Horner speculates with Button’s strategy as McLaren’s strategy to favour Ham against Button, which I find quite interesting and logical:
Button in front after others finish 1st pit stop. Button’s slow race pace holds the RBs and FA so Ham catches up and the strategy gives Ham the chance to overtake, and Button finishing 5th. Of course, it all blew up after Ham problems with gear box.
If this is true: team strategy or team orders? Um…
dyslexicbunny said on 11th October 2010, 12:28
If I recall correctly (and I easily might not be), Button actually calls his own strategy. I’m pretty sure he at least decides when to pit but I think the previous statement is true too. And if that’s the case then it’s just bad luck.
Besides, there’s no real way it would be team orders. It would just be lousy strategy provided for favoritism. And favoritism isn’t illegal; it’s just crappy in my opinion.
chemakal said on 11th October 2010, 15:46
well, I can only see the difference to Ferrari’s move in the moment of applying the strategy: middle of the race with a blatant use of the radio (congrats to Massa and his engineer) or before the race face to face (did Button agree to that?). Moreover, Ferrari’s move only influenced the result of Ferrari drivers whereas Macclas strategy, if it would have worked, wouyld have had an influence on other drivers positioning/ points… always under the assumption that Horner is right
dyslexicbunny said on 11th October 2010, 16:46
Well technically, any team should hope that their strategy would have an influence on driver positioning, especially if you aren’t on pole. Well unless you don’t like winning.
Honestly, I really think Button was just trying something completely balls out and hoping it would work in his favor. Does anyone actually know who decides Button’s strategy?
Slowing the field a bit wouldn’t hurt Hamilton either but Alonso and Kubica were ahead of him so you’d have to hope he could overtake both of them to even have a chance to cut into Red Bull’s lead (which I never thought they could). I’m not convinced that was quite their plan and they were putting eggs in different baskets instead. But we’ll never know.
DaveW said on 11th October 2010, 18:07
If that were true then Button would not have been working at crossed-purpose by holding Hamilton up in the first stint when Hamilton’s tires were fresh. Perhaps when it became clear that the strategy was crap they decided they would try to hold up the RedBulls, but that would have become clear as soon as Alonso began gapping Button in the first stint.