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ebastian Vettel is now a triple world champion, the youngest in history and what a great race to the finish of a thrilling season.

Vettel looked drained after the race and rightly so.

Spinning on the first lap and then having to make an extra pitstop when the weather changed, must have put thoughts of losing the world title through his head.

I feel for Alonso though. We knew going into this weekend that for Fernando to steal the world title, he needed some help.

Some wet weather to overcome the car’s disadvantage he and some quick rivals to put between himself and Vettel.

Both things happened, but Alonso just did not have the pace to win the race and title.

At times he was not even the second quickest car on track but more like the seventh or eighth.

Just through a brilliant opening two laps and complete consistency he finished second, but a long way off the first place he needed.

Button ended up winning the race and along with Hamilton’s win in the race before, it really showed that the McLaren has had a quick car this year.

By their own admission, they have not got the best from it every weekend which is something they will have to fix for next year.

This will be a hard thing to do when they have lost Hamilton.

There is nobody quicker than Button when he is in the zone but he has not been consistent enough, and Lewis is the only other driver that is on Vettel and Alonso’s level.

He will be an asset for Mercedes next year.

Other stand out performer this year has to be Raikkonen.

Lotus produced a good car, but no one expected Raikkonen to hit the ground running and to be so consistent, let alone finish the year with a win.

Well done to him and it will be fun to see if he can repeat that next year. His team mate, Grosjean was one of the worst drivers but also one of the best this year.

He had too many accidents and even after his one race ban, he did not seem to understand that he was doing anything wrong.

Only after collecting Webber at Suzuka did he show the contriteness to indicate that he was ready to reevaluate how he approaches races.

But you cannot deny he has been outstandingly quick on occasion this year and I hope we see his full potential soon, maybe even next year.

I have also enjoyed watching Perez and Hulkenburg this year.

Perez showed flashes of brilliance but I’m afraid that there is still a learning curve for him to climb.

Ferrari did not use him when Massa was under performing earlier in the year, so perhaps they know that there is still some maturity for him to attain.

McLaren have taken a risk with him for next year to replace Hamilton and it will fun to see how quickly he can improve to Button’s level.

Hulkenberg is probably still underrated and I have seen enough of him to think that he is ready for a big team.

He moves to Sauber next year, and hopefully they will provide a car to showcase what he can do.

Alex Yoong is an F1 expert on STAR Sports’ coverage of Formula One.