It means Red Bull have secured the rare feat of the double-double, taking
back-to-back drivers’ and constructors’ crowns.
Hamilton did all that could be expected of him at the start, making a clean
getaway and keeping Vettel behind him on the short run down to the
left-handed turn one.
But the 26-year-old then had no answer to Vettel over the next few seconds,
initially doing just enough to hold off the German on the approach into the
sharp right at turn three.
But out of the corner and on the blast towards turn four, Hamilton could not
defend, almost making it all too easy for Vettel to grab the lead.
For McLaren team-mate Jenson Button, his opening few corners were worse as he
dropped three places from third to sixth, hardly what would have been
expected in the McLaren camp prior to the start.
Although there was a light sprinkling of rain in the air, it was not enough to
trouble the drivers and in stark contrast to last year’s inaugural event
which started behind the safety car.
A relatively tepid affair was spiced up on lap 17 when Vitaly Petrov
inexplicably ran into the back of Mercedes’ Michael Schumacher at turn
three, the Russian almost collecting fifth-placed Fernando Alonso in his
Ferrari in the process.
Only a minute beforehand Schumacher had avoided one scrape when Alonso emerged
back onto the track from the dangerous pit exit at this circuit, the
Spaniard just managing to retain his front wing.
But the seven-times champion’s race was soon run when he lost his rear wing
courtesy of Petrov, with both forced into retirement.
With debris on the track, it led to the deployment of the safety car, bringing
the field together and an opportunity for Hamilton to try and put pressure
on Vettel.
But it never materialised, and instead as the laps unfolded it soon became
clear this was not going to be Hamilton’s day.
Rather than challenging Vettel for victory, his race turned into a defensive
tussle with Webber in a bid to retain second.
On laps 33 and 34 in particular, sandwiched by a pit stop in which McLaren’s
crew just managed to keep their man in front, Webber was all over the back
of the silver machine.
For once, in an incident-filled season that has left Hamilton in a dark mood
of late, he managed to keep it clean as they went wheel- to-wheel on
occasions.
What then followed for the remainder of the race was a microcosm of the season
as Vettel was away and clear, as in the championship.
Behind him, the four protagonists scrapping over the minor placings in the
title picture did likewise in the race.
Hamilton fought furiously to hold off Webber, who only momentarily grabbed
second on lap 49 into turn one and through turn two, only for the former to
respond on the long straight that followed.
Behind them Button and Alonso were close, but never really close enough to
challenge for the podium places, the quartet separated by 3.6secs come the
end of the 55 laps.
Felipe Massa took sixth in his Ferrari, followed by the Toro Rossos of Jaime
Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi in seventh and ninth, the duo sandwiching
Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg.
For the fourth time in the last six races, Paul di Resta finished in the
points for Force India, taking 10th.