OCTOBER 31 2013 AUTOSPORT.COM 17

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Sebastian Vettel stylishly clinched his fourth straight world championship with a devastating victory won

through sheer, pummelling, relentless pace, delivered within a strategy made tricky by the extreme wear rate of the softer option tyre around the Buddh International Circuit. Yet this 26-year-old phenomenon made it look childs play. Two of the other three men to have won four titles Juan Manuel Fangio and Alain Prost had not yet won a grand prix when they were Vettels age. Fangio, in fact, had yet to even make his debut. Are even Michael Schumachers records safe from Vettels grasp?

But brilliant though Vettel was on Sunday, he was helped by a strategy that turned out to be the right one. Only hindsight tells us this. On the eve of the race, most were accepting that two-stopping was the optimum, but whether it was better to be starting on the soft tyre (like Vettel) or the medium (like Red

Van der Garde was

rst retirement after

opening-lap incident

on the long straight to maximise the benefit of DRS ensured that Vettel was always mega-quick, even as he was storming through traffic.

Vettels early-race task from pole was going to be to sprint clear in the full knowledge that hed be in after very few laps to change to the more durable mediums. But thereafter he needed to get within 21 seconds of Webber before Mark pitted, if he was to jump him at the next stop. That sounded like a tall order.

Webbers task, as the best-placed medium-tyred car on the grid, was to make maximum use of his second-row slot, hope that any soft-tyred cars ahead of him soon pitted out of his way (not all the cars were as punishing to the softs as the Red Bulls), then run flat-out in clear air up front to build up a gap, once Vettel stopped, of 21s or more. Not to denigrate Vettels faultless, aggressive and fast drive, but the effectiveness of DRS, in combination with the RB9s fairly strong top speed, allowed Seb to actually lap faster by constantly benefiting from DRS as he made his way from 17th after his lap-two stop.

Webber had no aid from DRS once he was at the front, and this allowed Vettel to punish his team-mates poor opening lap. As Seb rejoined the track after his stop he was now 14 seconds behind Mark, and that was the biggest the gap ever was. Vettels DRS-assisted pace and instant overtaking, combined with Webbers time loss in the first seven laps behind slower cars, ensured that the thrillingly closely-matched strategy game that

was in prospect never played out.Both men went into this race hugely

motivated: Vettel because he wanted to win the title in style by taking a sixth consecutive race victory, one of the few records he didnt already own; Webber because, going into the last four races of his F1 career, he was still intensely competitive and had not yet won a 2013 grand prix, such has been his team-mates monopoly and that stolen Malaysia win.

It was vital to Webbers prime-tyre opening stint that he capitalise fully on his grid slot. But he failed to do that. After an iffy start off the line with Vettel sprinting away up front from the two Mercedes and Felipe Massas fast-starting Ferrari Webber, in fifth, had Fernando Alonso to his outside as they approached Turn 1. The corner was Webbers, but he chose to take a lot of inside kerb too much, as it turned out. The Red Bull was thrown across the track and made light contact with the Ferrari, a piece of Alonsos front-wing endplate flying off.

With Alonsos and Webbers momentum onto the uphill drag to Turns 2 and 3 compromised, so Nico Hulkenberg and Kimi Raikkonen dragged past them, the Lotus then rubbing with the Red Bull through Turn 3. From fourth to seventh, with six soon-to-be-slow soft-tyred cars ahead of him, the playing out of Webbers strategy had just got off to an awful start. But all was not lost yet. Lets see how quickly they would pit out of his way to get rid of their inevitably blistered front-lefts

Vettel is already

sailing clear as Massa

surges past the Mercs

Bull team-mate Mark Webber) was about as clear as the view in the New Delhi smog. As it turned out, a crucial Red Bull set-up decision taken on Friday evening for both cars made because the extreme blistering of the soft after very few laps made it obvious that whatever strategy was chosen was going to involve overtaking other cars turned out to favour the Vettel strategy.

After Friday we took some wing off and put on a longer top gear, on the basis we were going to have to go through traffic at some point, explained Red Bull technical chief Adrian Newey. An RB9 fast enough

EtHErington/LAt

DUnBAr/LAt

RACe 15.00, 27.10.2013Vettels task was to

sprint clear in the

knowledge that hed

soon be in for tyres

R A C E R E P O R T

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OCTOBER 31 2013 AUTOSPORT.COM 19

Vettel is told: People

are struggling on the options,

the tyres are falling apart. He replies:

Blistering on the left-hand side.

1459

HONE/LAT

Rosberg reports his FP1

handling woes: Big oversteer

in high speed and a bit too much

oversteer on the entry to slow speed.

1052

Kimi complains about

the option tyres only being

good for a lap or two but hes urged to

keep pushing until you think theyre

unsafe to use. He says: I want to do at

least one more lap on the other tyres.

1518

Alonsos gearbox

breaks: I went to third and then

I got neutral. He cruises to the pits.

Vettel is asked to test

torque setting five. Negative.

I dont like torque five.

1055

1526

Webber is advised:

Try lifting more in Turn 8 to

improve Turn 9.

1529

Chilton asks rhetorically:

What just happened? Bloody

jumped out of gear.

Hulkenberg is happy:

The car is mega on prime.

1101

1530

Maldonados front-

right wheelnut flies off, and his

tyre deflates in the pitlane entry: Im

losing the wheel. Hes told: Just pull

the car over somewhere safe.

1507

Massa reports: Lost

completely the grip on the left

side. It oversteers, the car.

1104

Hamilton reports:

The cars all over the place.

1114

friday

Di Resta reports: The

front-right tyre looked like it

was blowing up on the straights.

1457

Hulkenberg says: Very

understeery. Outside left-front

shoulder is making a blister, Im

not sure theres a funny bump.

1453

Maldonado loses control of

the rear of his car and spins at Turn 16.

1106

Calado spins at Turn

15. Coming in, he says.

1124

Kimi spins at Turn 3 in FP2.1409

R A C E R E P O R T

McLaren of Sergio Perez (like Webber, on mediums) followed.

The other McLaren of Jenson Button went round the outside of Turn 4, with Alonso on the inside. As Jenson came back off the exit kerb at just the moment Alonso was oversteering, trying to get the power down, they snagged. The Ferraris already damaged front wing was now properly done for, while the McLaren took some sidepod and tyre damage. Alonso would be in at the end of the second lap for a replacement wing, with Button coming in after six laps when the affected tyre finally punctured. That pretty much ruined the races of both drivers, given that they were on the mediums and therefore needed to do long stints.

From 17th on the grid, Romain Grosjean reckoned he needed a good start to have any hope of a good result and hed failed to get one. After Paul di Resta pitted in front of him at the end of the first lap to get rid of his softs, the Lotus was stuck behind Esteban Gutierrezs Sauber which had jumped the start for a lap but then

Vettels lap-two pitstop

meant he had plenty of

passing to do from 17th

STALEY/LAT

the most downforce. This track and compound combination made for a perfect demonstration of how there is a threshold of tyre strength, below which the best cars are penalised and above which they dominate. This has long restricted the full potential of Red Bull in the Pirelli era, and has been a major reason for the tyre politicking thats been such a theme of this season. Around Buddh, the RB9 on softs was good for a fabulous qualifying lap 0.8s clear of the field, but was hopeless after three to four race laps significantly fewer than even the next-worst-afflicted cars could manage. On the medium, it could retain its devastating qualifying advantage into the race. We had the essential competitive mechanism of the season laid out bare in India, for all to see and understand.

As Vettel screamed clear of the pack, so Massa slipstreamed by the Mercs of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg down that long smoggy back straight, slicing boldly ahead into the tight Turn 4 to take up second place. Hulkenbergs Sauber, Raikkonen, Webber and the

Lotuss Alan Permane

was irritated by Pirellis

advice and saw no

reason to comply

and finally

Perez too

but carved past

Bottas and Gutierrez

Rosberg leads Merc

team-mate Hamilton

on way to second

Vettel and Webber had chosen their strategies independently. For Red Bull, and almost everyone else, two-stopping was the only way of doing the race. The early blistering of the left-front soft left way too much remaining distance for just a single set of mediums. Pirellis strict camber and pressure limits, keeping stress off the structure of the tyre and minimising the risk of failures, combined with the punishing challenge of Turns 10/11/12, meant the tyre crown was taking all the load which, on the left-front, meant blistering worse than Ive ever seen, according to one engineer.

All cars were afflicted but the Red Bulls more than any, because they have

began picking cars off. His was an interesting strategy based around the Lotuss famously easy tyre usage. He was using the soft for his first stint and hoping to get it to last 12 laps, from where he intended to run to the finish One stop? No way. Impossible. Forget it, exclaimed one rival of that prospect. Pirelli agreed. It had advised that the soft should not be run for more than 15 laps and the medium no more than 35. Which, if adhered to, made a one-stop impossible for the 60-lap race. But it was only advisory.

Lotuss Alan Permane was irritated by that and saw no reason why his team should comply. I went down to see Charlie [Whiting, race director] to see what his views were and he was happy for people to not stick to that, he explained. Our tyre wear said we were fine to go further than that and Charlie felt it was unfair to base everyones race on the car with the hardest tyre use. We felt we could do 48 laps on the medium and thats why we knew we had to get Romain to 12 on the softs.

Vettel was 2.5s clear of the pack at the end of the opening lap. Next lap he came in! This was earlier than expected, even of a soft-tyred Red Bull. But it actually made perfect sense. On the Red Bull, that front-left wasnt going to last for more than a handful of laps and when it went it would lose whole chunks of time. Avoiding that risk, Seb was in and under way again on fresh primes after a 3.1s stop. He rejoined behind Max Chiltons Marussia, 14s and 11 places behind Webber.

Massa led for the next six laps, while Webber waited patiently in the queue. He went by Raikkonen with the aid of DRS up to Turn 4 on the sixth lap but otherwise seemed content to wait, knowing that he would be leading

THOMPSON/GETTY

DUNBAR/LAT

STALEY/LAT