This mornings Japanese GrandPrix was dominated from start to finish RedBull' Sebatian Vettel. The German, who started from pole position made a great start and avoided the first corner mayhem to take a commanding victory in a race which saw many surprise's. Fernando Alonso, who coming into the race had a 29 point lead in the championship failed to finish as he tried to overtake Kimi Raikkonen's Lotus at the start.
The Ferrari driver pushed Kimi out wide heading down to the first corner, leaving Kimi with nowhere to go, Alonso's rear tyre made contact with Kimi's front wing causing the Ferrari to get a puncture and as a result Alonso went out wide and retired from the race. In the immidiate oftermath of the crash Alonso was blaming Kimi for the incident however Alonso should take a look at himself as it was him who was responsible for his accident and it was no one else's fault.
Meanwhile just ahead of Kimi, an unsuspecting RedBull of Mark Webber, who was recovering from a poor start was hit by the Lotus of Romain Grojsean going into turn 1, yet another incident this season involving the Lotus driver. I am a Lotus fan and in my opinion at this stage of the season Romain is hurting to the team in a massive way. He has shown that he is capable of finishing in the pints and on the podium, however all too often this season he has caused crashes.
He was even banned for the Italian GrandPrix following a heavy crash at the Belgian GrandPrix. So it is going to be extremely interesting to see what the team decide to do about him.
Meanwhile Jenson Button, who started the race from 8th place on the grid made a cracking start and by turn 1 he had made his way through the field and up to third just behind Kamui Kobayashi. It was a tough day for the other McLaren and Lewis Hamilton made a mistake with his set up on Satrday however, he did a great job to finish in 5ht place just behind JB.
It was an unfortunate day for the Sauber of Sergio Perez, fresh from signing a deal with McLaren to replace Lewis Hamilton, the young Mexican was lining up an overtaking move on Lewis when he ran wide and into the gravel trap and was unable to continue the race after getting stuck.
Michael Schumacher, who announced on Thursday that he will retire from F1 at the end of the year started the race from 23rd on the grid following a grid penalty had a fantastic race and narrowly missed on collecting a point for Mercedes when he finished in 11th place behind the Toro Rosso of Daniel Ricciardo.
However in my opinion, the driver of the race had to be home favourite, Kamui Kobayashi who picked up his first ever F1 podium at his home GrandPrix, becoming only the second Japanese driver to take a podium at his home race. He finished third behind Felipe Massa in second who was a welcome return to the podium for the first time since Korea 2010 and race winner Sebastian Vettel. The last Japanese driver to achieve a podium at his home race was Aguri Suzuki back in 1990.
Kimi Raikkonen drove another fantastic race for the Lotus team, helping them to cement their place in 4th place in Constructors championship and he remains in third in the Driver's championship after a well deserved 6th place finish following a tough qualifying yesterday.
So it set up to be a fascinating race in Korea and we don't have to wait too long at all as the next race is only one week away and with only four point's separating the top two in the championship it is going to be a cracking race as Fernando Alonso will be looking to put in a strong performance following today's DNF.
Another factor next weekend is that the Lotus team along with a number of other team's will be bringing heavily revised upgrade package's to the race so the championship as I predicted yesterday with five race's to go has been blown wide open. Don't miss any of the action!!!
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