» Indian GP: Vettel cruises serenely to victory

Sebastian Vettel remains on track to equal Michael Schumacher’s 2004 record of thirteen wins in a single season, after the German cruised to his eleventh win of 2011 at the inaugural Indian Grand Prix.

The win was one of the German’s most straightforward: he led every lap from pole and set the fastest lap to boot, becoming the first driver since Fernando Alonso at last year’s Singapore Grand Prix – and just the twenty-second in the sport’s history – to claim a grand chelem (pole, win, fastest lap, leading every lap).

At the start, Vettel led into the first corner and quick set about building himself an early lead. He enjoyed a margin of up to five seconds for much of the race – the gap only coming down during the pit stop sequences – while the battles behind were the focal point of the race.

The opening sequence of corners saw plenty of carnage. Fernando Alonso outbraked himself at Turn 1 and ran wide, dropping a place to fourth. Behind them, Rubens Barrichello locked up and hit the back of Williams team-mate Pastor Maldonado, triggering a chain reaction that forced Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi wide.

Evidently without looking into his mirrors, the Japanese driver attempted to rejoin the circuit and sideswiped Timo Glock’s Virgin Racing car; Kobayashi ground to a halt a few laps later, while Glock – after a precautionary pit stop – found the damage was too great and parked his car after two laps.

But the action was not over, for at Turn 3, Jarno Trulli hit the back of Daniel Ricciardo and spun onto the infield. Ricciardo continued undamaged, while Trulli limped to the pits with a puncture. He finished the race in last place, five laps adrift.

The early-lap dramas saw Trulli, Barrichello and Sergio Pérez all pit, although the Mexican’s stop was purely to ditch the hard-compound Pirellis he had started on in order to switch to the more-favoured soft tyres. Given the Mexican’s known gentle driving, he could effectively run the race with just one further pit stop – a tactic that saw him snatch tenth place and an all-important point for Sauber.

Williams’ horror season continued, with Barrichello’s stablemate Maldonado parking his FW33 before quarter-distance with his gearbox packed it in.

Another retiree was a frustrated Sébastien Buemi, who parked his Toro Rosso with an engine failure. The Swiss driver had shown excellent pace in the early stages, running in team-mate Jaime Alguersuari’s wheel tracks, and was a certainty to continue the Italian team’s run of points. As it was, Alguersuari took his giant-killing STR6 to eighth place and four more points, bringing the team level with Sauber in the Constructors’ Championship and within ten points of claiming sixth place from Force India, who claimed two points with Adrian Sutil’s run to ninth place.

Up at the front, Vettel was never challenged, and the German set himself the task of claiming more records. Much to the alacrity of his team, he continued to clock up fastest laps, posting a staggering 1:27.457 on the final tour.

His leading margin was only trimmed during the pit stops, and an early final stop helped the chasing Jenson Button close down the gap to just two seconds. But Vettel always had the pace in hand and quickly built the lead back up, crossing the line with 8.4 seconds over the Briton.

Button’s second place came off the back of his opening-lap pass on Webber down the circuit’s undulating back straight. From there on, he quickly built himself a buffer over the Australian, but he simply didn’t have enough in hand to mount a challenge on Vettel.

Webber, meanwhile, was struggling with rear tyre wear and did well to keep the chasing Alonso at bay for much of the race. But making his switch to the slower and harder Pirellis a few laps before Alonso was all the Spaniard needed to undercut the Australian and claim the final podium spot. Although Webber was able to close back up onto the back of the Ferrari, he never had an opportunity to pass.

The trying seasons for Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa continued, and to the incredulity of everyone, the pair conspired to have their fourth on-track incident of the season.

This time it was the quicker Hamilton to tried a move on Massa into the Turn 5 left-hander; having stuck his McLaren up the inside, Massa turned towards the apex and pinched Hamilton. Massa spun and rejoined, while Hamilton limped to the pits with a broken front wing.

To the surprise of many commentators, it was Massa who was served a drive-through penalty for failing to cede the corner to Hamilton, and we’ll go on Hamilton’s side in this argument. No doubt this will spark yet another chapter in the Hamilton-Massa ‘handbags at dawn’ battle, which will be more than happily fuelled by the hacks in the British tabloids…

While Hamilton would limp to seventh place, Massa compounded his misery when he also showed he still hadn’t learned from his crash in qualifying, caused by hopping the kerbs.

The Brazilian did it again in near-identical fashion, snapping his front suspension and retiring. Incredibly, he’d laid the blame after his qualifying crash on the circuit and gone so far as suggesting that the kerbs be reprofiled. But the high inside kerbing exists to stop drivers shortcutting the corners, and with no one else having this problem, Massa will be the lone voice of irrational argument here.

The disasters for Hamilton and Massa meant a nice present for the Mercedes GP drivers to pick up another haul of points. Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher ran in tandem for the entire race, but Schumacher made his final pit stop for the hard tyres a few laps later than Rosberg, which was enough to see him jump his countryman and claim fifth place at the chequered flag.

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2011 Indian Formula 1 Grand Prix – Final Classification (60 laps):

	Driver	Team	Laps	Result
1.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing – Renault RB7	60	1:30:35.002
2.	Jenson Button	Vodafone McLaren Mercedes MP4-26	60	+ 8.433
3.	Fernando Alonso	Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro F150° Italia	60	+ 24.301
4.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing – Renault RB7	60	+ 25.529
5.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP Petronas F1 Team W02	60	+ 1:05.421
6.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP Petronas F1 Team W02	60	+ 1:06.581
7.	Lewis Hamilton	Vodafone McLaren Mercedes MP4-26	60	+ 1:24.183
8.	Jaime Alguersuari	Scuderia Toro Rosso – Ferrari STR6	59	1 lap behind
9.	Adrian Sutil	Force India F1 Team – Mercedes VJM04	59	1 lap behind
10.	Sergio Pérez	Sauber F1 Team – Ferrari C30	59	1 lap behind
11.	Vitaly Petrov	Lotus Renault GP R31	59	1 lap behind
12.	Bruno Senna	Lotus Renault GP R31	59	1 lap behind
13.	Paul di Resta	Force India F1 Team – Mercedes VJM04	59	1 lap behind
14.	Heikki Kovalainen	Team Lotus – Renault T128	58	2 laps behind
15.	Rubens Barrichello	AT&T Williams – Cosworth FW33	58	2 laps behind
16.	Jérôme d’Ambrosio	Marussia Virgin Racing – Cosworth	57	3 laps behind
17.	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT F1 Team – Cosworth F111	57	3 laps behind
18.	Daniel Ricciardo	HRT F1 Team – Cosworth F111	57	3 laps behind
19.	Jarno Trulli	Team Lotus – Renault T128	56	4 laps behind

	NOT CLASSIFIED
DNF.	Felipe Massa	Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro F150° Italia	32	Suspension
DNF.	Sébastien Buemi	Scuderia Toro Rosso – Ferrari STR6	24	Engine
DNF.	Pastor Maldonado	AT&T Williams – Cosworth FW33	12	Gearbox
DNF.	Timo Glock	Marussia Virgin Racing – Cosworth	2	Damage
DNF.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber F1 Team – Ferrari C30	0	Collision

	FASTEST LAP
	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing – Renault RB7	60	1:27.457