F1:Japan (Part One) - The Day of the Vettel

With the action hotting up as the season draws to a close, can Red Bull Racing driver Sebastian Vettel seal his fourth consecutive world title, or will there be a strong sting in the tail as the season draws ever closer to a close?

Let's have a look at my interpretation of the best of the action from round 15 in Suzuka, Japan...



QUALIFYING

Q1 - For starters it has to be qualifying and Jenson Button was the early pace setter, clocking a time of 1:32.606 ahead of the two Lotuses of Romain Grosjean and Kimi Räikkönen  the Finn looking to improve on his qualifying as, since announced that he would be teaming up with the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso next year, Grosjean has consistently been faster than him and barring a spot of bad luck in the race, has even been outlasting him in terms of number of race laps led.

The first bit of disaster though, came for the Williams of Esteban Gutierrez, whose car was spotted on fire due to fumes igniting from the petrol being put in his car. No harm though as everyone got out of the way safely before it was quickly extinguished.

Räikkönen's soon-to-be team-mate, Alonso, took pole from off Button as the McLaren driver sought to end a run of bad form that has also seen him outqualified by his team-mate. Alonso's time was three tenths faster than Button already giving the impression that Alonso would not finish the required ninth easily!

With seven minutes remaining in Q1, World Champion Vettel came to the circuit which he has won at three out of the last four years so it was likely that he was going to go out, do a scorcher of a lap and then return to his garage in a bid to get the others to raise their game to try and beat his seemingly unraceable form at the minute...

It wasn't to be immediately as Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes was the next to take pole position followed by Vettel coming home in 3rd, naturally meaning that the two of them were two of the safest drivers in terms of not missing out on Q2. It was not long though before the pole position for Q1 came to the Red Bull garage, though it was not Vettel as expected; Mark Webber being the guilty party this time!

This was going to be a sign of things to come for the Australian in his final Formula One grands prix of his career, but not before announcements that the changing wind direction across different parts of the circuit was going to catch some drivers out if they weren't careful. This was due to the amount of under/oversteer that could be faux generated as the winds whipped around the car and would undoubtedly catch people out if they were not careful.

Webber at this point was told to do another lap to take advantage of this and try and set an even faster time.

Then, it was an incident involving a dual brake fire for the Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne that brought the red flag out thus ending Q1 a few moments prematurely.

The star of Q1 was not, as expected, anyone who takes pole away from Vettel, but the Marussia of Max Chilton who outqualified the rest of the rookies and was on course to start yet another grand prix. He is fortunate so far to have not had a single DNF in his maiden season as an F1 driver!

Q2 - The only thing worthy of note here was the fact that the two Red Bulls once again showed the dominance of their pace as they emerged from their garage with a little over three minutes left to set the pace that would lead the way into Q3 and the moments where it REALLY mattered were approaching.

They are looking on sublime form so at the minute, anyone'd be a fool to bet against them locking out the front row again!

Q3 - Sebastian Vettel was looking on sublime form (I'm sure I've said that at least ONCE this year!) and he took the initiative and grabbed pole with a time of 1:31.3, before he was pipped to the actual front slot by a time of 1:30.9 for Mark Webber. Were fortunes changing for the Aussie racer? This is the first time he's beaten him, bro's so it promises to be a great race, that's for sure. It is Mark Webber's first pole position since Korea last year so it's long overdue, that's also for sure!

Never mind tic-tac-toe then, because it's five pole positions in a row for Red Bull now and they charge ever onwards to the constructors title, just like Vettel does in the Drivers'... Hamilton was the first non-Red Bull in 3rd, again beating his team-mate Rosberg to the punch.

Jules Bianchi and Charles Pic have been given 10 place grid penalties because of clocking up three separate reprimands each, whilst Pic himself left the pit lane under red flag conditions due to the Vergne brake fire, so it really wasn't looking like it was going to be their day. As if that wasn't bad enough, Pic was charged with serving a drive-through penalty that he must take within the first 5 laps of this race.

Onto the race, after the jump===>>