I’ll be honest with you – I didn’t see qualifying, as I was away for the weekend, being vaguely sociable for a change.
Well, drinking mostly. Same thing, isn’t it..?
What I did pick up was that Seb was continuing his dominant form, being right at the pointy end during the Free Practice sessions, and then nailing pole comfortably during quail. It certainly looked ominous for Sunday...
And so it proved to be. Das Sebulator squeezed Webber at the start, scything into a lead that he was never to be relieved of, for the whole 60 laps of the Indian GP.
Alonso was doing his best to stay in touch, diving between the McLarens into a temporary 3rd place, only for them to pincer him back. After a couple of scary, millimetre-perfect, corners of battling, Fernando had to settle for 4th with Jenson ahead, and Lewis behind, him.
Schumi’s dismal end to his second stab at F1 continued it’s drawn-out death throes, as a slight clip by Vergne left the veteran German with a puncture and a bloody long drive back to the pits.
By the time DRS was allowed on lap 3, the Red Bull boys had already pulled comfortably out of range of it’s impending use. Alonso cleared Button a lap later, and the struggling Brit then lost a further position to Hamilton on lap 6.
Perez was busy having a lacklustre weekend, clipping Ricciardo whilst overtaking him and picking up a puncture, before retiring on lap 22.
Kimi, meanwhile, was having his usual, unobtrusive race for points, this time with the resurgent Massa. Kimbo sliced past as Massa rejoined after pitting, but Felipe was straight back past him under DRS.
The afternoon’s puncture-fest continued, with Kobayashi and Maldonad’oh tangling, on lap 32, with Pastor coming out of it rather deflated.
Fernando certainly hadn’t given up on the race, and was challenging Webber for position mid-race, whilst Hamilton and McLaren showed that they can work together brilliantly, pulling off a startling 3.3 second pit stop that included a swap of steering wheel too. Lewis already had the car in neutral and the wheel off before he was stationary, which was genuinely remarkable stuff.
Massa was receiving some pretty dire warnings about his fuel consumption, the battle with Raikkonen having left him in a ‘critical’ situation on the 4 star front. Lewis, meanwhile, was back to having a grumble, complaining that his tyres weren’t going to last.
With two-thirds of the race gone, Seb was a mighty 11 seconds up the road from Webber. 8 laps later, and the gap was to Fernando instead, as he passed Mark, who was having yet more Red Bull KERS-system issues, and unable to fend off Alonso.
Senna boosted his chances of still having a drive next year by passing Rosberg for 10th place, sealing yet another truly crappy weekend for the other silver cars with a Merc in the back. Lewis must be really looking forward to the move next season.
Hamilton’s allegedly rubbish tyres seemed to be working OK with 8 laps of the race left, as he bagged fastest lap, and began closing on Webber, whilst Alonso gently began catching Vettel.
Even a mini-firework display from Seb’s car dragging it’s carbon fibre arse along the floor like a mangy hound didn’t slow him, and with 3 laps left Alonso was starting to looked ragged, even having an off-track moment.
Lewis was in an out of DRS range of Webber over the last couple of laps, but couldn’t make a move, leaving the two title protagonists to come home first and second. Good, but worrying – Vettel has now won 4 races in a row, and even led every lap of the last 3.
It’s going to take some bad luck for Seb, and a stellar performance by Alonso to turn this tide... but it could turn oh-so easily.
Let’s hope so...
(Top tunes tonight from OK Go's "Oh No" album. Fuzzy guitar rock? That'll do nicely...)
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