F1: Fourth Win Puts Vettel Close To 2012 Title

Formula 1

F1: Fourth Win Puts Vettel Close To 2012 Title

Red Bull driver has now won four consecutive races...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted October 28, 2012 New Delhi (IND)

Winner Red Bull-Renault driver Sebastian Vettel of Germany (Left) sprays champagne at Indian grid girls after his victory at the Formula One Indian Grand Prix at The Buddh International circuit. (Photo: Getty Images)

Sebastian Vettel’s dominant victory in the Indian GP took him a step closer to his third World Championship. He now heads Fernando Alonso by 13 points, with just three races to come.

Vettel led every lap of the race, as he did at the same venue last year. He also scored four consecutive victories in the same season for the first time.

“It’s very hard to target those kind of things,” said Vettel of his new personal mark. “I think they either happen or they don’t happen. I think the secret, if there is any, is that we didn’t approach the first of those four races thinking we can win four. We focused on the first one, then on the second one, then on the third one, then on the fourth one. So, really step by step.

“I think the whole team is working together fantastically well. I don’t think there is one thing that stands out to make a difference. We can see that in every kind of area. We don’t have any problems on Friday, we get through our program, we get more or less the answers we want, we are able to improve the car from Friday to Saturday with support here on the track but also in the factory.”

Crucially Vettel stayed safely ahead of Mark Webber at the start.

“I enjoyed the race a lot. I think it was crucial to open a gap in the first stint to break the DRS early to Mark, who had a very good start I think, and it was quite close in Turn One. But I was able to brake a little bit late and have quite a good exit out of Turn Three, which was important for the remainder of the race, and then was able to open a gap, not just to Mark but also to the cars behind and obviously control the race from there.

“I think we were very competitive on the soft tires – on the hard tires I think McLarens and Ferrari were pretty competitive. Unfortunately Mark lost KERS but as I said, I think we were probably not as competitive on the primes as on the soft tires but all in all a fantastic race.”

Vettel said he was keeping an eye on the progress of second man Alonso – who finished less than 10 seconds behind – in the closing stages.

“You never feel too certain. Obviously it's important, as I said earlier, I tried to open a gap to - you know - later on, and no matter what happened, to have a little bit of a cushion, to have time to react to be able to control the race in the end.

“Obviously I was told that Fernando got into P2, Mark had the problem, so I think, as Mark said, obviously with a completely smooth race he could stay ahead. As we also said, on the hard tires, McLaren and Ferrari were quite competitive. I think I had the same gap when he started to be second as I had in the end, so I was able to keep the gap and control the race.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.