India Grand Prix – Race Results

| Source: autosport.com |

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Sebastian Vettel sealed his fourth consecutive Formula 1 World Championship crown with a dominant Indian Grand Prix victory.

Webber’s misfortune promoted Kimi Raikkonen to second, the Lotus driver attempting to make it to the finish with a 52-lap stint on medium Pirellis.

But the Finn could not hold off the two-stopping Rosberg, who used his DRS to ease into second with eight laps remaining. He finished 29s behind Vettel as Red Bull clinched the constructors’ title.

Raikkonen’s pace during the final few laps was over a second slower than those chasing him, including team-mate Grosjean, whose rubber was 46 laps old by the finish.

The Frenchman, who started 17th, pulled onto Raikkonen’s tail with four laps to go and passed the Finn for third at the exit of Turn 4, only to cede back the place immediately to avoid a penalty.

Raikkonen let Grosjean by further around the lap to allow the Frenchman to to finish on the podium for a third straight race. He was then passed by Massa for fourth as they crossed the start/finish line seconds later.

The battling Hamilton and Perez were with Raikkonen a lap-and-a-half later, Perez using his DRS and KERS to pass both down the back straight and take fifth

Raikkonen, who lost sixth to Hamilton during the same move, pitted for fresh rubber with just two laps to go, but was able to remain ahead of Paul di Resta and set the race’s fastest lap right at the death.

Raikkonen hampered by overheating brakes:

“I did the first 20 laps with hardly any brakes on the car,” he said.

“They overheated massively and every time I got close to somebody I lost the brakes.

“In the end we lost the tyres too. It’s very disappointing.”

Raikkonen and his Lotus team had a blunt radio exchange as his team-mate Romain Grosjean closed in on him late on.

After resisting Grosjean’s first passing attempt, Raikkonen eased off and let him pass.

“It’s normal to move out of the way, but you can’t do it in a fast corner,” he said when quizzed about the argument.

Pos  Driver        Team                       Time
 1.  Vettel         Red Bull-Renault           1h31:12.187
 2.  Rosberg        Mercedes                   +    29.823
 3.  Grosjean       Lotus-Renault              +    39.892
 4.  Massa          Ferrari                    +    41.692
 5.  Perez          McLaren-Mercedes           +    43.829
 6.  Hamilton       Mercedes                   +    52.400
 7.  Raikkonen      Lotus-Renault              +  1:07.900
 8.  Di Resta       Force India-Mercedes       +  1:12.800
 9.  Sutil          Force India-Mercedes       +  1:14.700
10.  Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +  1:16.200
11.  Alonso         Ferrari                    +  1:18.200
12.  Maldonado      Williams-Renault           +  1:18.900
13.  Vergne         Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +     1 lap
14.  Button         McLaren-Mercedes           +     1 lap
15.  Gutierrez      Sauber-Ferrari             +     1 lap
16.  Bottas         Williams-Renault           +     1 lap
17.  Chilton        Marussia-Cosworth          +    2 laps
18.  Bianchi        Marussia-Cosworth          +    2 laps
19.  Hulkenberg     Sauber-Ferrari             +    6 laps

Fastest lap: Raikkonen, 1:27.679

Not classified/retirements:

Driver        Team                         On lap
Webber         Red Bull-Renault             40
Pic            Caterham-Renault             36
van der Garde  Caterham-Renault             2

World Championship standings, round 16:                

Drivers:                    Constructors:             
 1.  Vettel        322        1.  Red Bull-Renault          470
 2.  Alonso        207        2.  Mercedes                  313
 3.  Raikkonen     183        3.  Ferrari                   309
 4.  Hamilton      169        4.  Lotus-Renault             285
 5.  Webber        148        5.  McLaren-Mercedes           93
 6.  Rosberg       144        6.  Force India-Mercedes       68
 7.  Massa         102        7.  Sauber-Ferrari             45
 8.  Grosjean      102        8.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari         32
 9.  Button         60        9.  Williams-Renault            1
10.  Di Resta       40       
11.  Huleknberg     39       
12.  Perez          33       
13.  Sutil          28       
14.  Ricciardo      19       
15.  Vergne         13       
16.  Gutierrez       6       
17.  Maldonado       1

 

BBC Post-race interview:

Lotus Quotes:

Lotus to discuss intra-team battle

Eric Boullier: “They are free to race each other. It’s true that we maybe expected a little bit of an easier manoeuvre, let’s say. You are never happy when you see both cars fighting and one car going off so you just make sure everything is going in the team interest. I’m going to speak to both of them in Abu Dhabi. We are working for these guys to deliver, but there is a team behind them and you always have to think about the team. If Kimi’s tyres would not have dropped off he would have been on the podium. We let them race, which is normal, but the tyres dropped off and we tried to save the maximum number of points for Kimi. We had the fear of the tyres dropping off for Romain. We had an engine issue as well when we had to switch off everything to make sure the engine would last to the end. There was a lot of stress behind which is not always easy to manage. Kimi is a competitor. He is racing everybody and I can understand this. But when you are racing in certain conditions, you are racing and I am fine with that. When the tyres are dropping off and you are two seconds off the pace against your team-mate you try not to make a drama of this.”

Team Quotes:

Kimi Raikkonen – 7th: “We ran maybe the first twenty laps with no brakes as they had overheated massively, so every time I got close to somebody I lost braking. At the end of the race I ran out of tyre performance too so it’s been a pretty disappointing day. I knew the tyres would drop off quite quickly, but there wasn’t much to lose between trying to get to the end and making an extra pit stop in terms of time lost. In the end it didn’t work.”

Romain Grosjean – 3rd: “If you had told me yesterday that I’d be on the podium here I would have said you were crazy! Straight from the beginning of the race I felt very comfortable on the option tyres and we looked in pretty good shape, then we fitted the mediums and the car was really quick. I lost quite a lot of time behind [Esteban] Gutierrez which maybe cost us the fight for second, but we managed to come back from that well. When I saw that I was fourth in front of [Felipe] Massa with 27 laps to go I knew it was going to be close with him as we had to take care of the tyres, plus we had an engine issue at the end of the race which made things quite tricky. In the final laps Kimi was really struggling with his tyres so I managed to pass him and luckily had enough pace to keep Felipe behind. Before the race our best prediction was fourth if we had a strong start and a perfect race, so it was an amazing result and a great performance from the team.”

Eric Boullier, Team Principal: “It’s been an eventful weekend. In the end it was a brilliant job from the team and a great performance from Romain, who had a very strong drive and managed to conserve his tyre performance right to the end. He was fast today despite having to nurse his engine, and being on the podium is a good reward for the whole team. Obviously it’s disappointing that the tyres couldn’t last long enough for Kimi as being third and fourth would have been an amazing result for the team and very useful in the Constructors’ Championship, but we’ll keep fighting hard until the end of the season and we’ll give some headaches to the other teams. We give our congratulations to Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull for their Championship victory today, and also our promise that we’re working hard to give them a tougher battle in 2014.”

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: “It was a fantastic race from both drivers, even though the strategy didn’t quite work out for Kimi. We started with a plan of two stops for him but made the call to go for one after losing time stuck behind Nico [Hulkenberg]. Unfortunately the tyres didn’t quite last as long as he needed and he was forced into making a late stop for fresh rubber. It was a fantastic drive from Romain again and a great call from our strategy team to move him from seventeenth to third; that was just brilliant. Romain’s engine pneumatic system’s air consumption was a big worry and we had to use every trick in the book to avoid him retiring as per Singapore. Overall, a great team performance today.”

Video – Team Radio soundclip:

 

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