Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel won the Japanese Grand Prix last Sunday but IT was not enough to secure his fourth successive Formula One title after Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso finished fourth.
The 26-year-old German’s fourth win at Suzuka in the last five years left him with a lead of 90 points over Alonso with four races, and a maximum 100 points, remaining. The next race is India on October 27.
Vettel’s Australian team-mate Mark Webber, who had started on pole position, finished 7.1 seconds behind in a Red Bull one-two, with Frenchman Romain Grosjean taking third place for Lotus. It was Vettel’s fifth win in a row, ninth in 15 races this season and the 35th of his career.
Webber always knew he was going to have a battle on his hands with his team mate but it was Grosjean who seized the lead, with a storming start from fourth, while both Red Bull drivers were slow to react.
Vettel made contact with Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes, with the Briton first suffering a puncture that sent him to the back of the field and then retiring.
Kimi Raikkonen was fifth for Lotus with Nico Hulkenberg sixth in the Sauber. Nico Rosberg put some points on the board for Mercedes, which slipped further behind Ferrari in the manufacturers championship to third place.