Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel won the inaugural Formula One Indian
Grand Prix on Sunday, staying on track to equal the record for the
number of wins in a season.
Vettel led from start to finish, maintaining a comfortable
buffer throughout to finish 8.4 seconds ahead of McLaren's Jenson
Button, with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso a distant third at theBuddh
International Circuit.
"All in all it was a smooth race, the car was very well
balanced," Vettel said. "I'm very proud to be the first winner here in
India."
The race saw yet another collision between McLaren's Lewis
Hamilton and Ferrari's Felipe Massa to intensify their rivalry, with
Massa in te wrong and given a pit drive-through penalty before later
breaking his front suspension and retiring from the race.
Red Bull's Mark Webber was fourth, ahead of the Mercedes pair of Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg.
Vettel has 11 wins this season and victories in the final two
races in Brazil and Abu Dabi would equal Schumacher's record of 13 wins.
It was a comprehensive victory by the German, who completed the
perfect race of starting from pole position, securing race victory,
leading every lap and recording the fastest lap.
Vettel and his team are not letting up despite already having clinched the drvers' and constructors' championships.
"There is no sign of getting lazy and not paying attention to detail, and it's great to see that," Vettel said.
"All the people come with their questions and we give them the right answers."
He made his trademark brilliant start, pushing his lead beyond
fourseconds after just five laps. Button cut the gap to 2.7 seconds
after the second set of pitstops, when both switched to the harder
tires, and looked capable of mounting a challenge but could get no
closer.
"As soon as Seb got into a rhythm, I had to forget about it
really," Button said. "As a team we did aerfect job ... we couldn't have
done anything else."
Alonso overtook Webber by waiting a little longer for his final
pitstop to change to hard tires. The Australian closed within a second
of Alonso on the final lap, but the Spaniard held on to claim a podium
finish.
"It was a little bit surprising he dided to stop," Alonso said. "We did two extra laps and were able to overtake him."
Hamilton was forced to pit with damage after the collision with
Massa, and that was enough to push him down to seventh. Massa made it a
weekend to forget when he went too hard over a high-speed curb and
snapped his front suspension - the same mistake he made in qualifying.
Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari was eighth, Adrian Sutil was
ninth to give Force India points in its home race and Sauber's Sergio
Perez took the final point for tenth after starting 20th on the grid.
Button increased his lead in the fight for second in the
championship, moving 13 points ahead of Alonso, with Webber a further
six points back.
Before the race, all drivers and top team personnel plus
Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone observed a minute's silence on the
grid to mark the deaths of IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon and MotoGP rider
Marco Simoncelli this month.
"We lost two of our mates," Vettel said. "It's a bit mixed emotions today, and my thoughts are with them at this moment."
