Button Wins But Vettel Takes Title

With his girlfriend, Jessica Michibata looking on, Jenson Button pulled out a fantastic win over Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel. Though his race was begun on a sour note, Button turned the tables and won the 2011 Japanese Grand Prix.

The tyre degradation did not appear as badly as anticipated. There were predictions of four to five pitstops during the race but more drivers were able to get away with only three. Leaving not much room for error. 

Even before the 24 cars made it to the first corner, millions of fans laid witness to Sebastian Vettel not only pushing Jenson Button off line but across the pitexit and onto the grass. Immediately McLaren filed a complaint with the FIA to no avail. 

Lap 12 we saw Sébastien Buemi's Toro Rosso lose a tyre. After managing to overtake four cars at race start, it was a poor way to end the race for the Swiss. 

Lap 22 and we saw Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa come together again leaving only the Ferari with damage. To this viewer, it almost seemed as thought Massa was in Hamilton's 'blind spot'. Yes Hamilton should have known that Massa was near the side of him, but what goes through the mind of an F1 driver during race and more so, an overtake, we don't know.  End result: no further action from the stewards.

What most fans were unaware of though during the race was that the Marussia Virgin drivers were having their own race long scrap.  All that the camera's showed was a 'backmarker holding up Vettel' and not that the two MVR driver's fighting it out (although two laps down) for P20.

What the 2011 Japanese Grand Prix did leave us with was the youngest-ever back-to-back winner. Sebastian Vettel (24 years and 98 days)

“To win the world championship here is fantastic, and there are so many things I want to say in this moment but it’s hard to remember all of them, I am so thankful to everyone in the team, both here at the track and at Milton Keynes, to be able to fight for the championship and find ourselves in a very strong position. It was great to achieve the goal we set ourselves already, with four races left.”

Jenson Button	Winner
Fernando Alonso	2nd
Sebastian Vettel	3rd
Mark Webber	P4
Lewis Hamilton	P5
Michael Schumacher	P6
Felipe Massa	P7
Sergio Perez	P8  Your driver of the day
Vitaly Petrov	P9
Nico Rosberg	P10
Adrian Sutil	P11
Paul di Resta	P12
Kamui Kobayahi	P13
Pastor Maldonado	P14
Jaime Alguersuari	P15
Bruno Senna	P16
Rubens Barrichello	P17
Heikki Kovalainen	P18
Jarno Trulli	P19
Timo Glock	P20
Jérôme d'Ambrosio	P21
Daniel Ricciardo	P22
Vitantonio Liuzzi	P23
Sébastien Buemi	Retired (tyre)