In the end, it was a true champion’s drive. Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull worked in complete harmony to not only come through from the back of the field to win the Indian Grand Prix but, in the process, collect the German’s fourth successive world title and give Red Bull the Constructors’ Championship for a fourth time.
Vettel had it all to do, despite starting from pole position. By choosing to qualify on a soft tyre that appeared to have a life of no more than five or six laps, Vettel and Red Bull had to stop at the end of lap two and get rid of the Soft tyre even though that would mean re-joining behind the rest of the pack, the majority of whom would be running longer on the harder Medium tyre.
Mathematically, Vettel only needed to finish fifth to secure the title, no matter what his only remaining rival, Fernando Alonso, did. The Spaniard, in turn, had to finish in the top two if he was to have any hope of taking the championship to Abu Dhabi next weekend.
Alonso’s slim chances were virtually ended on the first lap when the Ferrari ‘s front wing was damaged by Vettel’s team-mate, Mark Webber after the Red Bull had been knocked sideways by the Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen. Alonso’s problems were further compounded by a brush with a McLaren at the next corner. There was no alternative but to stop for a new nose, thus wrecking Ferrari’s strategy of starting with the Medium tyre – which was the tyre Vettel found himself on after that planned stop at the end of lap 2.
He rejoined in 17th place, knowing he needed to work quickly through the field if he wanted to anything about Webber, who was on the opposite strategy. Webber had compromised qualifying (he was fourth on the grid) by going for the harder tyre in the knowledge that this would leave him in good shape for the first phase of the race.
That plan, however, received a typical Webber setback when he became trapped at the first corner and had the subsequent the contact with Raikkonen. Fortunately, there was no harm done and Webber eventually moved into the lead as others (on the Soft tyre) stopped.
This was on lap nine. By which time, Vettel was already in sixth place after slicing his way through. That became fourth, then third. By lap 21, Vettel was in second place, 11.6 seconds behind Webber who would, of course, have to stop sooner rather than later and get rid of the tyres he had started on.
Whether he could have held on became academic when alternator problem caused the Australian to park by the side of the track, not long after his stop, when he was 13 seconds behind Vettel.
Webber’s retirement was a worry for Red Bull as they monitored Vettel’s car with 20 laps to run. There was no threat from behind as the Lotus and Mercedes squabbled over the remainder of the podium places (Nico Rosberg eventually taking second after a canny race ahead of Romain Grosjean’s impressively driven Lotus, Grosjean being only one of two drivers to have managed to stop just once). Nonetheless Adrian Newey, designer of the Red Bull RB9, did not want another failure at the 11th hour.
‘We’d had long debates about how to treat this weekend once we knew the softer tyre wouldn’t last,’ said Newey. ‘We reduced wing level to up the top speed on basis we were going to have to overtake of we stopped early – which is what we did. We went the aggressive route, which caused some anxiety for eight laps or so as Seb worked his way through. Then there were the worries at the end.’
Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal, knew the problem would be controlling his driver (Vettel has a penchant for setting the fastest race lap), even though he was leading comfortably.
‘We warned ‘Rocky’ (Guillaume Roquelin, Vettel’s engineer) that fastest laps were not an option,’ said Horner. ‘Once we saw what happened to Mark, we turned everything off on Sebs’s car – KERS, even the electric-powered drinks bottle – just to be sure. What happened on one car could happen on the other. You are trying to manage that but then you see Seb setting purple sector times (fastest lap) and that gets your blood pressure up a bit!
‘But it was typical of the way Seb was simply focussing on one race at a time. His objective since arriving in India was to win the championship by winning the race. It needed him to deliver in those early laps – and that’s exactly what he did.’
A true champion’s drive indeed.
