Looks like we will have to wait for the Abu Dhabi GP to find out who will win the Driver’s Championship as Red Bull scored a 1-2 victory in Brazil, forcing championship leader Fernando Alonso to finish in third and take the battle to the next race. The 1-2 victory was led by Sebastian Vettel after the German and his Australian teammate started from second and third, behind Williams’ Nico Hulkenberg. The perfect finish for Red Bull also mean that the team has secured the 2010 Constructor’s Championship, a remarkable achievement for the Austrian energy drink maker.
Both Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button from McLaren finished in fourth and fifth respectively, which officially puts the latter out of contention for the Driver’s Championship. The Mercedes drivers line up behind with Nico Rosberg’s sixth place finish, ahead of Michael Schumacher. The driver who started the race from pole position, Nico Hulkenberg managed to come home in eight place in front of Renault’s Robert Kubica and Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi.
The Lotus Racing team, whose sponsor Proton is rumored to back Renault next year achieved a reasonable result today as both Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli finished in 18th and 19th positions ahead of their Virgin and Hispania rivals. The only retirement of the day was Force India’s Vitantonio Liuzzi after crashing and causing the deployment of the Safety Car on Lap 51.
In contrast to qualifying, today’s race was an all dry affair and as expected, pole sitter Hulkenberg lost his lead to Vettel before they approached Turn 1 on the opening lap. Webber soon made his move while Alonso took a couple of laps to overtake Hulkenberg. After making the move stick, Alonso was already about 10 seconds behind the Red Bulls. A couple of laps later Hamilton made his move on Hulkenberg and took over fourth place.
Up ahead the Red Bulls were at a league of their own, pulling away from Alonso’s Ferrari. This arrangement was pretty much maintained through out the race. The race was quite incident-free until Lap 51 out of 71 when Liuzzi ran wide after Turn 1 and hit the barriers. The Safety Car was then deployed and that brought all the competitors closer together. Unfortunately at the restart, there were several back markers between the Vettel, Webber and Alonso. This meant that Vettel enjoyed a better chance of maintaining his lead while the other two had to spend precious time to overtake the back markers.
Formula 1 will now head to Abu Dhabi for this weekend’s race where the 2010 Driver’s Champion will be crowned. Four drivers are mathematically able to win the championship including Alonso, Webber, Vettel and Hamilton. However, Hamilton is a little too far off and realistically the battle will be between the top three contenders.
After today’s result, Alonso is still leading with 246 points with Webber and Vettel in 238 and 231 points. Hamilton has 222. Be sure to catch the season finale, see you then!
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nice job….hope Alonso will get the 2010 world champion
congratulation to RBR…i really hope Webber win the race…but more important is finish ahead of Alonso…Mark Webber u must win the title…pity u a bit bcoz your Red Bull no focus on you at all….let the god bless u more and win the title next week in abu dahbi…Alonso & Vettel pls be patient wait next year 2011…
RBR is definately favouring Vettel.
He should have let Webber thru to narrow the points gap of Alonso.
Webber just leave RBR and join Lotus Racing next year.
Tony, pls capitalise on this opportunity to get the best driver in F1.
RBR management are idiots. Rather than have a strong possibility of Webber winning, they have idiot Vettel in the mix and a strong likelihood that Alonso will win.
Good job Alonso, coming almost from nowhere to be a top contender. Sorry Mark, go to a better team next year! And too bad Hamilton and Maclaren weren’t on the same level.
Alonso only need to finish 3rd in abu dhabi if red bull didn’t make webber their 1st driver and let vettel win in abu dhabi
i thought team orders are banned? either way vettel won’t just let mark webber zoom past him without giving a fight.
anyone notice the “?” at the side of the Lotus? i dun think it was there before…
It’s been there since the Singapore GP
RBR is killing themselves on driver’s championship but at least they got the manufacturer championship. The clearly deserved it since their car is unstoppable. Just if Alonso took the driver’s championship Vettel and Webber will clearly killing each other soon!
Btw, do share the news in APRC where our own Proton Satria Neo S2000 has won the driver’s and manufacturer title in last weekend rally of china. Alistair McRae and Chris Atkinson finished in the podium! Bravo!
one of the most interesting season. 4 world champions racing together.
who will be crowned this time? slim chances between top 3 drivers. but i do hope its alonso & ferrari!
As they say, “Damned if you do, damned in you don’t”
If RBR told Vettel to let Webber through the team would be reprimanded by the FIA and people would criticize them for manipulating the finish.
Instead they let the 2 race and people STILL criticize them for not being ‘smart’.
Can’t please everyone I guess.
How come this blog has carried no news coverage at all on Group Lotus-Renault F1 partnership that will be in F1 by 2012? That is some of the biggest news in Malaysian Motorsport? Come on Paul….you need to be on the case here.
See below for details:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/87936