As the first two pulled away, Button came under increasing pressure from
Alonso and the Spaniard moved up to third on lap 11, slicing ahead at Turn
Six. “It is usually easy to defend into there,” Button said, “but I moved to
cover the inside and saw some bits and pieces on the track. I didn’t want to
drive through them and couldn’t move left because Fernando was already
there, so I had to cede the corner.”
The debris had been left by Michael Schumacher, whose Mercedes suffered a
left-rear tyre failure after he and Renault driver Bruno Senna banged wheels
at the start of lap 10. The Brazilian driver incurred front wing damage and
was also slapped with a drive-through penalty, for causing the collision.
Vettel made the first of his three scheduled stops on lap 17, sticking with
the soft Pirellis, and Webber did likewise when he pitted one lap later. The
Red Bull drivers were about three seconds apart at that stage, but Vettel
had already received a radio warning about the state of his gearbox. It
hadn’t worked entirely smoothly on Saturday and his crew had since tried to
effect repairs, but he was obliged to turn down the revs and short-shift
between gears in an effort to nurse the car.
Webber got the message, too, and could smell burning fluid as he closed in.
Vettel made no attempt to defend when the Australian moved ahead at the
start of lap 30, but then did his best to stick with his team-mate. “I was
just trying to stay close,” he said, “in case the problem cleared.”
It didn’t, though, and he eventually dropped back as the race evolved. Webber
made further tyre stops on laps 38 and 58, finally switching to the harder,
medium tyre and cruising to an easy victory. It was his first of the
campaign and he dedicated it to Bob Woods, a family friend in failing health.
“I’ve felt good all weekend,” he said. “Sebastian produced a great lap for
pole, but I got the rub of the green today. It would have been nice to have
a proper fight, but I’ll take the win and it’s nice to finish the season on
a high.”
Vettel’s car held out to the flag. At one point he radioed in to say he felt a
bit like Ayrton Senna in 1991 – when the late, great Brazilian won his home
race despite a deteriorating gearbox that left him stuck in sixth for the
final couple of laps – but the German’s problems were never quite that
severe.
Having felt uncomfortable on the softer tyre, Button switched to mediums at
his second stop, on lap 31, and was able to catch Alonso during the race’s
final stages, overtaking the Spaniard in the drag reduction zone on lap 63.
Third place was enough to secure second place in the championship for the
Englishman – and his pass also enabled Webber to jump ahead of Alonso in the
final standings.
Broken gearboxes were something of a motif for the day. Hamilton suffered a
similar problem and eventually had to retire on lap 47, while running sixth.
Felipe Massa took fifth, while Scot Paul di Resta completed an impressive
debut F1 season with a solid run to eighth, behind team-mate Adrian Sutil
and Nico Rosberg.
Leading Final Positions after Race (71 Laps): 1 Mark Webber (Aus) Red
Bull 1hr 32mins 17.464secs, 2 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 1:32:34.447, 3
Jenson Button (Gbr) McLaren 1:32:45.102, 4 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari
1:32:52.512, 5 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1:33:24.197, 6 Adrian Sutil (Ger)
Force India at 1 Lap, 7 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes GP at 1 Lap, 8 Paul di
Resta (Gbr) Force India at 1 Lap, 9 Kamui Kobayashi (Jpn) Sauber-Ferrari at
1 Lap, 10 Vitaly Petrov (Rus) Renault at 1 Lap, 11 Jaime Alguersuari (Spa)
Scuderia Toro Rosso at 1 Lap, 12 Sebastien Buemi (Swi) Scuderia Toro Rosso
at 1 Lap, 13 Sergio Perez (Mex) Sauber-Ferrari at 1 Lap, 14 Rubens
Barrichello (Bra) Williams at 1 Lap, 15 Michael Schumacher (Ger) Mercedes GP
at 1 Lap, 16 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) Lotus F1 at 2 Laps, 17 Bruno Senna
(Bra) Renault at 2 Laps, 18 Jarno Trulli (Ita) Lotus F1 at 2 Laps, 19 Jerome
d’Ambrosio (Bel) Virgin Racing at 3 Laps, 20 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) HRT-F1
at 3 Laps