Conclusions
from the 2012 Indian Grand Prix
Double-World Champion Sebastian Vettel completed a crushing victory once again at the Indian Grand Prix as his hunt for a third consecutive Drivers Championship title continued.
The German driver dominated from start-to-finish for the third race in a row, and continued his domination of the sport since the early stages of the Singaporean Grand Prix.
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso fell further behind despite another podium finish, and now he has only three more races to prevent Red Bull from claiming yet another title.
Here’s what we learned from the Indian Grand Prix.....
The German driver dominated from start-to-finish for the third race in a row, and continued his domination of the sport since the early stages of the Singaporean Grand Prix.
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso fell further behind despite another podium finish, and now he has only three more races to prevent Red Bull from claiming yet another title.
Here’s what we learned from the Indian Grand Prix.....
- In India, Vettel repeated his feat from last year as he started on pole position, led every lap and won the race as he had done at the inaugural Indian Grand Prix.
- All that was missing from the German’s impressive race was a fastest lap time, and Vettel only missed out on a ‘perfect’ Indian Grand Prix when Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button and Bruno Senna all bettered Vettel’s pace-setting time on their final lap.
- This weekend demonstrated another peerless performance by Vettel and his team. The German driver won his fourth consecutive race, and was part of the team’s third consecutive front-row lock-out.
- Matching a feat he achieved in the last two races of 2010 and first two of 2012, Vettel has now won four consecutive Grands Prix. Only five drivers throughout F1 history have managed to win five races or more. Nigel Mansell (5), Jim Clark (5), Jack Brabham (5), Michael Schumacher (6 and 7) and Alberto Ascari (9) have all managed longer consecutive streaks.
- For the third race in a row Vettel led from start to finish. The last time this happened was in 1989 when Ayrton Senna led every lap of the San Marino, Monaco and Mexican Grands Prix.
- Vettel has led every lap of the 2012 since Lewis Hamilton pulled over with a gearbox failure on lap 23 of the Singapore Grand Prix: a total of 205 laps. There are only four longer streaks of consecutive laps led in F1 history. They belong to Ascari (1952), Senna (1988/9) and Mansell (1992).
- This was the seventh race of his career in which Vettel has led from start of a Grand Prix to the chequered flag. Only five drivers half managed more than that including Michael Schumacher (11), Jackie Stewart (11) and Ayrton Senna (19).
- The Red Bull driver now also has 35 pole positions to his name, but needs another 30 to draw level with the next driver in front of him on the list: Ayrton Senna. By scoring his 26th win in his 98th race, Vettel could match Jackie Stewart's career record of 27 wins in 99 races with a victory at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
- Red Bull scored their third consecutive one-two in qualifying, the first time in the team’s history that they have achieved this. The last team to score three consecutive front rows was McLaren in 2007 Monaco, Canadian and United States Grands Prix.
- Red Bull could become three-peat constructors’ champions at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. This will happen unless Ferrari take five points out of their lead or McLaren reduce it by 15.
- McLaren recorded their 150th fastest lap as an F1 team as Jenson Button finished the race with the pace-setting time. It was the eighth of the British driver’s career, giving him the same number of fastest laps as James Hunt, Gilles Villeneuve and Ralf Schumacher.
- It was the 200th time that a British driver set a fastest lap. It took the UK 859 Grands Prix, 22 different drivers have contributed, the most of which have been secured by Nigel Mansell (30).
- McLaren scored points for the 55th race in a row, equalling the all-time record held by Ferrari. However, when the Italian team completed this feat, points were only awarded down to sixth place in the majority of races.
- Paul di Resta finished 12th place for third race in a row – the first time this has ever been done by an F1 driver.
- Mercedes have still not scored a point in any of the three races since Lewis Hamilton’s move from McLaren was announced. In the same vein, Sergio Perez has not scored a point since he was signed by McLaren for 2013.
- Michael Schumacher set a new record for the most completed laps by a Grand Prix driver. He has now logged 16,644 racing laps, eclipsing Ruben Barrichello’s tally of 16, 631. The next highest driver who is still competing is Button on 11,826.
- Lewis Hamilton scored the UK’s 6000th point. They now have a total of 6013.28, most of all countries currently or previous involved in F1.
- This was the first race since Italy 2008 that an entire weekend took place in which no teams or drivers received any fines or penalties.
- The finishing order of the first six in the race was the same as the final standings of the 2010 season – Vettel, Alonso, Webber, Hamilton, Button, Massa.