Hamilton wins in Russia for second time

Lewis Hamilton wins in Russia F1 Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes won in Russia for the second year running while his teammate Nico Rosberg retired.

It was an exciting race at Sochi with accident and deployment of safety car in the first lap. Nico Hulkenberg of Force India and Marcus Ericsson of Sauber collided in turn 2 in the first lap. Romain Grosjean of Lotus and Max Verstappen of Toro Rosso were also in the pits. The safety car period was over in lap 4 and racing restarted with Nico Rosberg in the lead. However his lead lasted till lap 7 when his teammate Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes overtook him. Nico Rosberg had problems with his car and crawled back to pits to retire from the race. Mercedes confirmed that the throttle damper of Nico Rosberg’s car had failed.

Lewis Hamilton made no mistake and won the race for his 42nd victory. Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari finished in second position. Sergio Perez of Force India was third.

It was a very brave as well as fortunate drive by Sergio Perez to stick to one stop strategy. In the last lap Valtteri Bottas tried to overtake Sergio Perez and Kimi Raikkonen who was battling Bottas, also tried to sneak in. As a result there was contact and Bottas stopped. Sergio Perez regained his third position. Kimi Raikkonen limps home to fifth as Felipe Massa of Williams overtook Raikkonen to take the 4th spot. The collision between Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas is being investigated and if replays prove to be conclusive the Kimi may be penalised.

After the first lap Safety car, it was again deployed in lap 12 when Romain Grosjean hit the walls hard causing another safety car period.

Danill Kvyat of Red Bull finished in sixth. He was followed by Felipe Nasr of Sauber in seventh. Pastor Maldonado of Lotus was 8th and former world champion Jenson Button of McLaren finished in 9th. Fernando Alonso who had no hopes of finishing in points grabbed the last points paying position and finished in 10th due to Valtteri Bottas retiring in the last lap.

Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull who was running in 4th position retired in lap 48. Carlos Sainz retired in Lap 49.

Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari had the fastest lap of the race. Though that doesn't get you any more points, however, drivers try to get that statistic.

Results of Russian F1 Grand Prix 2015

EDIT: Raikkonen penalised

Kimi Raikkonen was penalised for the incident with Valtteri Bottas. Raikkonen was handed down a 30 seconds penalty and hence he dropped down from 5th to 8th. So Kvyat became 5th, Felipe Nasr became 6th and Pastor Maldonado 7th.

Fernando Alonso was also handed a penalty for not respecting the track limits and hence he dropped down to 11th. Max Verstappen of Toro Rosso is now classified as 10th.

Reclassified Russian F1 Grand Prix Results

Sl.        Driver                         Team

1.         Lewis Hamilton          Mercedes

2.         Sebastian Vettel        Ferrari

3.         Sergio Perez               Force India

4.         Felipe Massa              Williams

5.         Daniil Kvyat               Red Bull

6.         Felipe Nasr                 Sauber

7.         Pastor Maldonado     Lotus

8.         Kimi Raikkonen         Ferrari

9.         Jenson Button            McLaren

10.       Max Verstappen        Toro Rosso

11.       Fernando Alonso       McLaren

12.       Valtteri Bottas            Williams

13.       Roberto Merhi           Marussia

14.       Will Stevens               Marussia

Rosberg leads from turn 1 to victory at Austria

Rosberg leads from turn 1 to victory at Austrian F1 Grand Prix

Nico Rosberg stated from second to overtake polesitter Lewis Hamilton at turn 1 and never looked back to win the Austrian F1 Grand Prix at Spielberg.

Except for one lap during pitstops, Nico Rosberg lead and won the race. Lewis Hamilton later said that he had a clutch problem which resulted in his slow start. He said "I let the clutch out and it just underperformed. Its something that I have been having since Barcelona and  before that I was having better starts."

It was the third victory of the season for Nico Rosberg after the previous victory at Monaco, where Mercedes decided to keep Nico Rosberg on the track during safety car period and brought back Lewis Hamilton for a pitstop to give victory to Rosberg. Now Nico Rosberg is only 10 points behind Lewis Hamilton and the championship doesn't look secure for Hamilton.

Felipe Massa of Williams finished third behind the two Mercedes cars.

Sebastian Vettel had a problem during the pitstop with his right rear wheel taking time to change and finished fourth. So this was the first podium finish for Felipe Massa this year. Valtteri Bottas of Williams finished fifth and was followed by Nico Hulkenberg of Force India in sixth.

Pastor Maldonado of Lotus was seventh and was followed by Max Verstappen of Toro Rosso in eighth. It was a big fight between these two drivers and Maldonado was able to overtake Verstappen just two laps before the finish and was just ahead by hardly a second at the finish line.

Sergio Perez of Force India was 9th and was followed by Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull in 10th. It was great for Ricciardo as he had to serve grid and stop go penalty.

It was an eminently forgettable race for Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari. He qualified at 18th and then had a first lap massive crash with Fernando Alonso of McLaren, his former teammate.

Felipe Nasr of Toro Rosso was 11th and was followed by sister team Red Bull's Daniil Kvyat at 12th.

Marcus Ericsson jump started ie started before the starters gun and hence was given a drive through penalty and he had car problems as well. He finished 13th ahead of Roberto Merhi of Manor Marussia Racing at 14th.

Austrian Grand Prix 2015 race results

Retirements in Austrian Grand Prix

Romain Grosjean
Carlos Sainz
Jenson Button
Will Stevens
Kimi Raikkonen
Fernando Alonso

Hamilton scores first Monaco Pole

Hamilton scores his first Pole in Monaco

Lewis Hamilton scored the crucial pole position in the F1 Grand Prix at Monaco

The qualifying in the F1 race at Monaco is very important given the twisting nature of the street circuit which makes overtaking difficult. The pole sitter generally wins the race. In the last 10 races, 9 times the driver has won from the pole.

There were spots of rain at the start of Q3. So Lewis Hamilton immediately started on his first qualifying lap in the Q3 and set a time of 1m 15. 304 for the provisional P1 slot. His teammate Nico Rosberg was further 0.136 seconds down. Sebastian Vettel was the only other driver to be in the 1m 15s. However, in the final run in Q3, Lewis Hamilton bettered his own lap time and scored a 1m 15.098 seconds. His teammate Nico Rosberg could not better his initial time and came in second and was 0.342 seconds behind him after setting a time of 1m 15.440s.

Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari was 0.751 seconds behind with a time of 1m 15.849s. Surprisingly Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull came in 4th with 1m 16.041s. Daniil Kyvat was 5th with 1m 16.182s.

Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari was 6th and more than half a second behind his teammate. Raikkonen scored a 1m 16.427s. He was followed by Sergio Perez of Force India in 7th with a time of 1m 16.808. Perez had done only one run where he was provisional P6 which was subsequently pushed down to P7 during the second run by other drivers.

Carlos Sainz was 8th with a time of 1m 16.931 seconds. Pastor Maldonado of Force India was 9th after he set a time of 1m 16.946s. Max Verstappen, the youngest driver in the F1 history came in at P10 with a time of 1m 16.957s.

Romain Grosjean of Lotus was 11th with a time of 1m 17.007 seconds. He was followed by Jenso Button of McLaren with 1m 17.093 seconds. Nico Hulkenberg of Force India was 13th as he was a further .1 seconds down on Jenson Button. Felipe Massa of Williams qualified on 14th with a time of 1m 17.278 seconds.

Fernando Alonso of McLaren had bad luck as his car stopped with a potential engine problem. His time was good enough for 15th position and qualify for the Q2. However, since he couldn’t participate in Q2.

Fernando Alonso was followed by Felipe Nasr in 16th. Valtteri Bottas of Williams was 17th and was followed by Marcus Ericsson in 18th.

As expected the two Marusia cars of Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi came in at 19th and 20th out of 20 cars in the Monaco F1 Grand Prix qualifying. They were the only two cars who were in the 1m 20s.

Anything is possible in Monaco as a number of cars hit the barriers and retire from the race. Last year, Marussia's driver Jules Bianchi had finished in 8th position and had earned their only points till date. Because of that points finish, they got an estimated 20 million pounds which helped them find a buyer and stay in this business. It is sad that Jules Bianchi had an accident at Japan in F1 race in 2014 and is fighting for his survival. His parents are now prepared to give up as the cost of medication is simply way too much for anyone to bear. Also Bianchi is not showing much improvement. It is time to remember him, so the Manor Marussia team has distributed a wrist band in Bianchi's name.

Lets hope tomorrow's race is entertaining without any injury to anyone.

Finally Rosberg beats Hamilton to Pole in Spain

Nico Rosberg finally managed to beat Lewis Hamilton and score the first pole in this season in the Spanish Grand Prix 2015. Nico Rosberg scored a time of 1m 24.681 to Hamilton’s 1m 24.948 seconds. It was a convincing gap between the two. They ran on medium tyres.

In the top ten shootout in Q3 of the qualifying, the drivers generally go for two runs. Hamilton as well as Nico Rosberg set their top times in the first run. In the second run Hamilton couldn’t try and beat the provisional pole set by Rosberg and had to settle for second. Sebastian Vettel of Ferarri came in third behind the two Mercedes cars after he set a time of 1m 25.458. His teammate Kimi Raikkonen could only score a P7.


Valtteri Bottas of Williams came in P4 with a time of 1m 25.694. He was followed by Carlos Sainz Jr of Toro Rosso with a time of 1m 26.136. As a rookie and that too a Spanish, it must be a great feeling for Sainz beating the favourite Spaniard Fernando Alonso in Spain.

Max Verstappen of Toro Rosso came in P6 with a time of 1m 26. 249 seconds. Kimi Raikkonen whose contract with Ferrari expires end of this season is expected to do well and beat his teammate. However, he could only set a time of 1m 26.414 for P7.

Danil Kvyat of Red Bull was P8 as he came in at 1m 26.629. He was followed by Felipe Massa of Williams at 1m 26.757 and Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull with a time of 1m 26. 770.

Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado of Lotus will start tomorrow at 11th and 12th positions respectively in the race tomorrow. The Lotus duo were followed by the McLaren drivers who were lead by Fernando Alonso in 13th and Jenson Button in 14th.

Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson of Sauber will start in 15th and 16th positions. The Force India duo of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez will start in 17th and 18th positions. Their times are about 3.5 seconds behind the pole timing and it shows how low they have fallen primarily due to the lack of funds. It would be pertinent to mention that one of the promoters of Force India, Subroto Roy is in jail for nearly a year as his company has not been able to furnish a bail bond of 1 billion dollars. The other promoter of Force India and its principal Dr. Vijay Mallya is also in deep financial trouble. Mallya’s Kingfisher airlines went bankrupt and Mallya is also been hounded by banks to recover the money. So it shows that even a midfield team in F1 can’t sustain just based on their performance.

The last placed drivers are as expectedly from Manor racing. Will Stevens again out qualified his teammate Roberto Merhi. Will Stevens scored 1m 31.200 vs 1m 32.038 of his teammate. Both of them will start in 19th and 20th position.

Spanish Grand Prix Qualifying Results:

Learing Negotiation from McLaren

Learning Negotiation from McLaren

It was very interesting to watch the moves of McLaren team this year. They had two drivers in the form of former world champion Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen who was having his first year.

McLaren had already announced that from next year ie. 2015 they are going to use Honda engines. Honda engine is supposed to be on par with the Mercedes engine or even better, if grapevine is to be believed. Honda also wanted to have two good drivers.

So McLaren went on targeting good drivers and finally netted Fernando Alonso who broke off his Ferrari contract two years earlier than expected and signed on the dotted line for McLaren.

When Alonso informed Ferrari that he would like to move away, they immediately approached Sebastian Vettel and he took advantage of his mid year points clause to get out of Red Bull.

Red Bull immediately signed on Daniil Kvyat of their sister team Toro Rosso and announced to the world that Sebastian Vettel is going to Ferrari. This put Alonso under pressure as Ferrari hadn't announced the signing of Vettel or departure of Alonso.

McLaren too remained tight lipped on their driver lineup. When questions were asked to Eric Boullier, team principal of McLaren that by it may be difficult for Jenson Button to find a competitive drive so late in the season if they don't re-sign him, he said that he is not concerned with it as that is the problem of Jenson Button's management team. All in all it appeared that Eric Boullier as well as Ron Dennis didn't want Jenson Button.

Without having any competitive drives around, Button even contemplated leaving F1 altogether for a drive in a sports car category.

McLaren knew that with a new engine, they will find a lot of challenges integrating it with their car and hence experienced drivers were necessary. Also, Jenson Button was known to give excellent feedback to the engineers. His knack of reading tricky situations like partially drying wet surfaces and making tyre calls are legendary. So McLaren obviously knew that it would be better to have Jenson Button along with Alonso. However, Jenson Button was hired at a huge salary because he was the 2009 World Champion. Clearly McLaren didn't want to pay him that much.

At a time when two teams had folded up from F1, everybody was aware of the financial challenge the companies were facing. The McLaren team also sent out information that they were delaying the news of their driver lineup because they are waiting for some sponsors. If they find enough sponsors then they may hire Button along with Alonso, else they will hire Kevin Magnussen. This also put pressure on Jenson Button and he also made statements that he is not much worried about salary but wants a competitive drive.

After pushing him to the wall, the McLaren team then sat with Button and told them clearly that if only Button would take a massive pay cut, then they will hire him. Else they won't be able to. In the negotiation when you keep the other party hanging and when their options diminish, they are likely to succumb. So same thing happened here and Jenson Button agreed to McLaren to sign on the contract at 8 million salary.

If Jenson would not have signed, then McLaren would have said that they offered Button a contract but he declined. So they would have put the blame on him. McLaren though are paying about three times more to Fernando Alonso. Though one knows that McLaren is greedy. However, in tough financial environment they don't care about ethics and just want to get the contract at their own terms.

Normally if you hire an employee in such situations, he/she is going to be demotivated. However, McLaren know that Jenson Button would love to beat Fernando Alonso to prove himself. So motivation will not be a problem even though Button would be angry. Also at the age of 35, Button doesn't have many more years left. It is a cruel world indeed. However, for all practical purposes one can learn negotiation from McLaren team.

Rosberg beat Hamilton to Pole in Abu Dhabi

Lewis Hamilton, the World Championship leader complained of vibration in his tyres in the Q3 of the Qualifying of the season ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Whereas his competitor and team-mate Nico Rosberg had no such problems and got the pole position by close to half a second quicker than Hamilton’s time. Nico Rosberg scored a 1m 40.480 seconds time vis-à-vis 1m40. 866 by Lewis Hamilton. It was a tense situation, as Rosberg has to win tomorrow’s race to have any chance of winning the championship, which till now is being led by Lewis Hamilton.

Behind the Mercedes pair of Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton came the Williams pair of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa. During practice Bottas was appearing strong. Nico Rosberg hopes that Bottas can beat Lewis Hamilton tomorrow, so that Rosberg can then win the Championship. For the Record, if Rosberg wins tomorrow’s race and Hamilton finishes in Second place, then Lewis Hamilton still finishes second. Lewis Hamilton is known to be a pure racer whereas Nico Rosberg can play dirty as was seen in Spa where he hit Hamilton from behind to ruin Hamilton’s race.

Tomorrow’s race appears to be the last race of Jenson Button. McLaren is believed to have signed up Fernando Alonso and is weighing up their options of whether to take Jenson Button or Kevin Magnussen in the other seat. At the fag end of the season, when there are no good race seats available, Jenson Button may have to quit F1. It is sad that Jenson Button cannot have a farewell race because McLaren decides to keep on the decision hanging till December 1st.

Ferrari would be happy as Kimi Raikkonen qualified ahead of Fernando Alonso who is leaving Ferrari after this race.

Final Qualifying positions in Bahrain F1 Grand Prix

01. Nico Rosberg                        Mercedes

02. Lewis Hamilton                    Mercedes

03. Valtteri Bottas                      Williams

04. Felipe Massa                        Williams

05. Daniel Ricciardo                  Red Bull

06. Sebastian Vettel                   Red Bull

07. Daniil Kvyat                        Toro Rosso

08. Jenson Button                      McLaren                    

09. Kimi Raikkonen                  Ferrari

10. Fernando Alonso                 Ferrari

11. Kevin Magnussen                McLaren

12. Jean-Eric Vergne                 Toro Rosso

13. Sergio Perez                         Force India

14. Nico Hulkenberg                 Force India

15. Adrian Sutil                         Sauber

16. Romain Grosjean                Lotus

17. Esteban Gutierrez               Sauber

18. Pastor Maldonado               Lotus

19. Kamui Kobayashi               Caterham

20. Will Stevens                       Caterham

Nico Wins and Hamilton spins to settle for Second in Brazil

Nico Rosberg comfortably wins in Brazil as Hamilton spins

Nico Rosberg comfortably won the race in Brazil starting from the pole position. He was helped by a error from Lewis Hamilton before the second pit stop.

Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton started on soft tyres which quickly became worn out on the newly laid racetrack. They had to strop soon for tyre change. Nico being the driver leading the race had the first option to stop and he stopped first on lap 7 followed by Hamilton in lap 8. During the second round of pit stops, Hamilton had the best chance to overtake.

Nico Rosberg came to the pits in lap 27 and Hamilton took the advantage of clean air to run fast. Unfortunately he spun 180 degree and rejoined the track. He lost lot of time and since then it was difficult to catch up and overtake. All Hamilton could do was finish second.

Before this race, Lewis Hamilton had a lead of 24 points. Now that lead has been reduced to 17. To win the championship, Lewis Hamilton has to finish atleast 2nd in the season ending Abu Dhabi race where the points awarded is double that of other races.

Felipe Massa finished a distant 3rd in his home race. He had a botched pit stop. His teammate Valtteri Bottas too had problems with pitstops and finished in 10th.

Jenson Button of McLaren who is bound to lose his drive with McLaren next year, drove a good race and finished in P4. His teammate Kevin Magnussen who will be driving alongside Fernando Alonso for McLaren next year finished in 9th.

Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull came in 5th. The Ferrari duo of Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen had a fight for the 6th position and finally Alonso could overtake Kimi with 3 laps to go as Kimi had old tyres. Alonso and Kim finished 6th and 7th.

Nico Hulkenberg of Force India was 8th.

Results of Brazilian F1 Grand Prix 2014

1. Nico Rosberg                Mercedes
2. Lewis Hamilton            Mercedes
3. Felipe Massa                 Williams
4. Jenson Button               McLaren
5. Sebastian Vettel            Red Bull
6. Fernando Alonso          Ferrari
7. Kimi Raikkonen           Ferrari
8. Nico Hulkenberg          Force India
9. Kevin Magnussen         McLaren
10. Valtteri Bottas            Williams
11. Daniil Kvyat               Toro Rosso
12. Pastor Maldonado       Lotus
13. Jean-Eric Vergne        Toro Rosso
14. Esteban Gutierrez        Sauber
15. Sergio Perez                Force India
16. Adrian Sutil                 Sauber

Retirements in Brazilian F1 Grand Prix 2014

Romain Grosjean       Lotus
Daniel Ricciardo        Red Bull

Nico Rosberg on Pole in Brazil F1 Qualifying

Nico Rosberg beat Hamilton to pole in Brazilian Grand Prix

It was an incredibly tightly contested qualifying in Brazil as Williams gave a scare to the Mercedes cars. However at the end in Q3, Felipe Massa of Williams in his home Grand Prix made a mistake and aborted the lap. Else it appeared that the Brazillian could have started the race tomorrow in pole position.

Nico Rosberg on the other hand was the fastest driver in all the three practice sessions and maintained his form in the Qualifying to score the pole position. The difference between him and his teammate-cum-rival Lewis Hamilton's time was minimal (1m 10.023seconds vs 1m 10.056 seconds of Hamilton).

Lewis Hamilton will once again try to overtake Nico Rosberg to win the race and extend his lead in the championship. It would be an interesting race tomorrow.

Final Qualifying Positions in Brazilian F1 Grand Prix

01. Nico Rosber                Mercedes
02. Lewis Hamilton          Mercedes
03. Felipe Massa               Williams
04. Valtteri Bottas             Williams
05. Jenson Button              McLaren
06. Sebastian Vettel           Red Bull
07. Kevin Magnussen        McLaren
08. Fernando Alonso          Ferrari
09. Daniel Ricciardo          Red Bull
10. Kimi Raikkonen           Ferrari
11. Esteban Gutierrez         Sauber
12. Nico Hulkenberg          Force India
13. Adrian Sutil                  Sauber
14. D. Kvyat                       Toro Rosso
15. Romain Grosjean         Lotus
16. Jean-Eric Vergne         Toro Rosso
17. Sergio Perez                 Force India
18. Pastor Maldonado        Lotus

Hamilton gets his 10th win at Austin

Hamilton gets his 10th F1 race win at Austin

Hamilton started P2 to his nearest rival and teammate Nico Rosberg who started in pole in Austin in US Grand Prix. Nico Rosberg took off cleanly preventing Hamilton from overtaking him during the race to the turn 1.

Hamilton drove a patient race showing that he has matured immensely. After the first pit stop in lap 16, Hamilton upped the pace to close the gap between him and Rosberg. Then in lap 23 he squeezed past Rosberg using DRS in the long straight before turn 12. He then controlled the race and finished 4.3 seconds ahead of Rosberg.

Lewis Hamilton thus extended his lead from 17 to 24 points over Nico Rosberg.

Daniel Ricciardo finished third by beating both the Williams drivers Felipe Massa (4th) and Vatteri Bottas (5th). Felipe Massa would be sad as he had a slow pit stop and for much of the race he was expected to be third.

Fernando Alonso of Ferrari finished 6th and his teammate Kimi Raikkonen a distant 13th with a lap down.

Sebastian Vettel who started from the pitlane due to change of engine, charged up the field and finished in 7th position. He could have done better if he would have avoided a bit of sloppy driving in lap 26 where he lost places to Romain Grosjean of Lotus and Jean-Eric Vergne of sister team Toro Rosso.

Kevin Magnussen of McLaren finished 8th. His teammate Jenson Button lost places and finished in 12th. Jenson Button was supposed to come in for tyre change in lap 27 as his tyres were degrading. McLaren had confirmed that but then suddenly they asked him not to come into pits and changed the tyres of his teammate Kevin Magnussen instead. Button became a sitting duck and three cars passed him before the next lap when he was called in for a tyre change. It seems that next year Jenson Button is not going to drive for McLaren. McLaren has not confirmed its driver lineup for next year. According to grapevine Fernando Alonso is to drive for McLaren next year. He is still negotiating his terms. Next year Honda is going to partner McLaren and supply engine to the team. Though Jenson Button has earlier driven for BAR-Honda team and has a high profile Japanese model girlfriend and is highly popular in Japan, he seems to be out of favour with the team. It seems McLaren will have Fernando Alonso and Kevin Magnussen next year.

Jean-Eric Vergne was penalised for a contact with Romain Grosjean of Lotus and hence instead of 9th position his final classification was 10th as 5 seconds penalty was added to his tally. He got 1 point for the 10th position. Romain Grosjean's teammate Pastor Maldonado of Lotus benefitted and became 9th and got 2 points.

Romain Grosjean of Lotus finished in 11th. Esteban Gutierrez of Sauber finished in 14th followed by Daniil Kvyat of Toro Rosso.

Nico Hulkenberg of Force India had an engine problem in lap 16 and retired. The other Force India car of Sergio Perez was embroiled in an accident with Adrian Sutil of Sauber in the first lap and both retired.

Sebastian Vettel win Brazilian Grand Prix to make it 9 in a row

Brazilian Grand Prix marks 9 in a row for Vettel

Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull won the 2013 Brazilian Grand Prix to score 9 race wins in row and equal the world record of Alberto Ascari. It was widely expected that Red Bull was the car to beat and out of the two Red Bull cars, Sebastian Vettel has got preference over his team mate Mark Webber in number of occasions this year.

He also equalled the record held by Michael Schumacher of 13 race wins in a season. So it became 13 wins in 2013 for Sebastian Vettel.

Sebastian Vettel could comfortably hold off his teammate Mark Webber who retired from the sport with this race. There was no drama in the race due to weather as it only drizzled intermittently, unlike the pouring that everybody expected. Vettel was 10.4 seconds ahead of his team mate. There was a bit of drama when the Red Bull team fumbled with his stop and Mark Webber had to patiently wait behind him for his turn to change tyres.

Fernando Alonso of Ferrari came third. Jenson Button who had qualified in 15th position drove a good race and finished on 4th. Nico Rosberg had raced ahead of Vettel during the start couldn’t hold on to the lead position and had to drop down due to his car eating up his tyres. Rosberg had to be content with a 5th position finish. Sergio Perez who had smashed against a wall in the qualifying and started the race in 14th position finished the race in 6th. This happened as Felipe Massa was slapped with a drive through penalty for crossing the pit lane entry white line marker. Massa was originally running just behind his team mate Fernando Alonso in 4th position. This helped Sergio Perez finish just ahead of Massa. Massa’s 7th position finish also resulted in Ferrari losing the second place in constructors championship to Mercedes. That would be worth several million dollars.

Nico Hulkenberg of Sauber finished in 8th position ahead of Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes. Hamilton had started in 4th but didn’t notice Valtteri Bottas of Williams was trying to unlap himself in the lap 47. So they touched and Hamilton got a rear right tyre puncture. To top it, Hamilton was also given a drive through penalty. Hamilton finished on 9th position.

Daniel Ricciardo of Toro Rosso finished in 10th and the last points paying position but had the ignominy of being 1 lap down.

Paul di Resta who is expected to be kicked out of Force India, finished just outside the points at 11th position. His team-mate Adrian Sutil, who is favourite to retain his position, finished in 13th. Esteban Gutierrez of Sauber separated the two scoring a 12th position finish.

Heikki Kovalainen finished a disappointing 14th position whereas his team-mate Romain Grosjean retired in lap 2 with engine trouble.

Jean-Eric Vergne of Toro Rosso came in 15th just ahead of Pastor Maldonado of Williams in 16th. The drivers from the 10th to 16th positions were one lap down.

Jules Bianchi of Marussia, Giedo van der Garde of Caterham and Max Chilton of Marussia finished 2 laps down at 17th, 18th and 19th positions respectively.

Final Positions in Brazilian Grand Prix 2013

1.   Sebastian Vettel              Red Bull

2.   Mark Webber                  Red Bull

3.   Fernando Alonso             Ferrari

4.   Jenson Button                  McLaren

5.   Nico Rosberg                    Mercedes

6.   Sergio Perez                     McLaren

7.   Felipe Massa                    Ferrari

8.   Nico Hulkenberg             Sauber

9.   Lewis Hamilton                Mercedes

10. Daniel Ricciardo              Toro Rosso

11. Paul di Resta                   Force India

12. Esteban Gutierrez           Sauber

13. Adrian Sutil                     Force India

14. Heikki Kovalainen           Lotus

15. Jean-Eric Vergne             Toro Rosso

16. Pastor Maldonado          Williams

17. Jules Bianchi                    Marussia

18. Giedo van der Garde      Caterham

19. Max Chilton                     Marussia

Retirements in the Brazilian Grand Prix 2013

Charles Pic Caterham
Valtteri Bottas Williams
Romain Grosjean Lotus