India GP: Vettel wins to extend lead

Sebastian Vettel has extended his lead of the World Championship to thirteen points after beating Fernando Alonso, his closest pursuer on the road and in the standings, to win the Indian GP.

It was a victory of sorts for both drivers, with Vettel cruising to a lights-to-victory that only briefly - and literally - sparked into anxiety in the faultless frontrunning manner that has become his default setting, while Alonso successfully hunted down Mark Webber to claim a second place which keeps the title race alive.
Alonso will certainly see it from that perspective. The Spaniard never knows when he is beaten and his look of defiance on the post-race podium sent out the unmistakable message that he will not surrender until the maths says he must. Yet, whatever measure of relief Alonso's latest successful act of damage limitation brings Ferrari, the fact remains that even a driver of his utter brilliance is currently unable to stem the awesome and imposing Vettel tide.

For the reigning World Champion, this amounted to a fourth successive victory - the first time he has recorded such a feat in a single season - and not since Lewis Hamilton's retirement in the Singapore GP over a month ago has any driver led an F1 race lap. He is on the cusp of becoming the new Michael Schumacher.
A dogged and determined Hamilton himself only narrowly failed to usurp Webber, suffering from an intermittent KERs failure in the second Red Bull, from the final podium spot in a race that was dominated by tyre management and ended in a degree tension when Vettel's undertray bottomed out along the backstraight. Yet like in Korea, when his performance of sheer domination ended in artificial tension as the Red Bull team cajoled their champion to slow down, there was no disgusing the extent of Red Bull's superiority. They are a class apart and surely only unreliability can now stop Vettel securing a third successive title.
They're also in danger of turning F1 into a procession and it speaks volumes about the bulk of the 60-lap race that, until Alonso and Hamilton caught the faltering Webber, the highlight was the extraordinary achievement of McLaren changing five wheels - four of which were tyres and one for steering - on Hamilton's car in precisely 3.3 seconds. It was also arguably McLaren's fastest moment of the race.

On the road, the early stages witnessed some of the finest driving of the season as Alonso, Hamilton and Button - who set the fastest lap of the race to deny Vettel the clean sweep - jousted to glorious effect. Side-by-side through half-a-dozen corners, it was first Button, then Hamilton who claimed third position before Alonso decisively ended the battle courtesy of his F2012's superior straight-line speed.
From fifth on the grid, second place represented a brilliant achievement for the Spaniard, an impression underlined by the struggle a rejuvenated Felipe Massa had in becoming a conspicious presence during the race. The Brazilian eventually finished sixth, twenty seconds behind Button and almost thirty adrift of his team-mate.
Further afield, Nico Hulkenberg once again overshadowed Force India team-mate Paul di Resta as he claimed seventh place, while Bruno Senna boosted his fragile hopes of retaining a seat on next year's grid by battling to tenth place with a gritty performance that even included an overtake on the sister Williams of Pastor Maldonado.
 
The less said about Michael Schumacher's afternoon, the better, however. Punctured at the first corner, the seven-times World Champion trundled around the back of the field thereafter and prior to his retirement suffered the ultimate indignity of being told he must visit the stewards after the race for the lowest-rung offence of ignoring the blue flags that are shown to backmarkers.
What a contrast the squalid death throes of his second life in F1 is proving to be with his first glory-laden incarnation.
But, as it has already proved once before, F1 will live on without Schumacher. There is, after all, already a second Schumacher in town who is poised to claim his third World Championship at the age of 25. The age of Vettel may only just be beginning.
http://www1.skysports.com/formula1/report/12433/8202205/india-gp--vettel-wins-to-extend-lead