Vettel’s performance here was another masterclass in leading from the front.
An emotional pre-race, which saw the drivers observe a minute’s silence in
remembrance of British IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon and MotoGP star Marco
Simoncelli, did little to distract him.
Vettel reached the first corner in the lead and never looked back. While
McLaren’s Jenson Button and Red Bull’s Mark Webber fought over second place
— the Englishman emerging victorious — Vettel established a five-second lead
and was content to sit there.
After setting the fastest lap of the day on the penultimate lap, he was
ordered by his team to “bring it home”. But, as if to show his superiority,
he proceeded to go even faster on the final lap, taking the chequered flag
waved by Indian cricketing superstar Sachin Tendulkar to earn the driver’s
Holy Trinity of pole, race win and fastest lap. It also earned him a
good-humoured ticking-off from his team principal, Christian Horner.
“We spoke about doing that after the last race and Seb apologised,” Horner
laughed. “And yet two weeks later here we are. But he’s a sensible boy. I’m
sure that he builds in a pretty big margin.”
Clearly he does, given Horner’s next revelation: “We wound the engine all the
way back, turned everything down as much as we could, turned the Kers off…
and he was still setting purple sectors at the end.”
Vettel’s win aside the race was most noteworthy for the fifth collision of the
year between McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, the
Brazilian earning a drive-through penalty as they battled for fifth.
Hamilton eventually finished seventh while Massa later retired after
breaking his suspension on a kerb for the second time in the weekend.
Appropriately, Vettel, Button and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, who finished
third, all dedicated their performances to Wheldon and Simoncelli. But it
will be the colour of India for which this race will be remembered; the
incongruity of Hollywood meets Bollywood. By and large, Formula One will
look forward to its next visit.
Final Positions: 1 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 1hr 30mins
35.002secs, 2 Jenson Button (Gbr) McLaren 1:30:43.435, 3 Fernando Alonso
(Spa) Ferrari 1:30:59.303, 4 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 1:31:00.531, 5
Michael Schumacher (Ger) Mercedes GP 1:31:40.423, 6 Nico Rosberg (Ger)
Mercedes GP 1:31:41.853, 7 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) McLaren 1:31:59.185, 8 Jaime
Alguersuari (Spa) Scuderia Toro Rosso at 1 Lap, 9 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force
India at 1 Lap, 10 Sergio Perez (Mex) Sauber-Ferrari at 1 Lap, 11 Vitaly
Petrov (Rus) Renault at 1 Lap, 12 Bruno Senna (Bra) Renault at 1 Lap, 13
Paul di Resta (Gbr) Force India at 1 Lap, 14 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) Lotus
F1 at 2 Laps, 15 Rubens Barrichello (Bra) Williams at 2 Laps, 16 Jerome
d’Ambrosio (Bel) Virgin Racing at 3 Laps, 17 Narain Karthikeyan (Ind) HRT-F1
at 3 Laps, 18 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) HRT-F1 at 3 Laps, 19 Jarno Trulli (Ita)
Lotus F1 at 5 Laps