Vettel Wins in India Bringing Home His Fourth Title

First and foremost.... Congratulations Sebastian Vettel for bringing home your fourth consecutive title!

Race start and the only real threat (so to be thought) was teammate Mark Webber. But as luck would have it, Webber’s retirement from second place with alternator failure on the 39th of the 60 laps took that chance away from the Australian.

Things went wrong for Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso (the other man who could stop Vettel from securing the title in India) right from the start. As Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen and Webber collided at the first corner, Alonso was left with nowhere to go and collected parts of the Red Bull, damaging his front wing and forcing him to pit for a replacement on the second lap. After that his Ferrari was never right and he never got higher than his eventual 11th place finish.

But Vettel was never realistically threatened. After Webber's retirement on lap 40, the team turned down all electronic devices on Vettel's car in order to try and avoid a repeat. Having crossed the line to secure his fourth title, Vettel returned to the grid instead of pulling in to the pits and proceeded to carry out some doughnuts in celebration in front of the main grandstand, before jumping out of the car and throwing his gloves in to the crowd and bowing to his car.

While Rosberg eventually finished in a comfortable second place, Romain Grosjean drove from 17th on the grid to third on the podium with a hugely-impressive one-stop strategy, surviving a late scrap with team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.

Massa took fifth after a strong start had left him in second place, ahead of McLaren's Sergio Perez, Lewis Hamilton (who struggled with his tyres) and Raikkonen (who made a last-minute pit stop before taking fastest lap). Perez benefited from Raikkonen's struggles to pass both the Lotus and Hamilton in one go on the back straight three laps from the end, but was too far behind Massa to threaten the Ferrari.

Paul di Resta took his first points since Silverstone in eighth place ahead of Force India team-mate Adrian Sutil in ninth and Daniel Ricciardo in tenth.

Sebastian Vettel	Winner
Nico Rosberg	Second
Romain Grosjean	Third
Felipe Massa	P4
Sergio Perez	P5
Lewis Hamilton	P6
Kimi Räikkönen	P7
Paul di Resta	P8
Adrian Sutil	P9
Daniel Ricciardo	P10
Fernando Alonso	P11
Pastor Maldonado	P12
Jean-Éric Vergne	P13
Jenson Button	P14
Esteban Gutiérrez	P15
Valtteri Bottas	P16
Max Chilton	P17
Jules Bianchi	P18
Nico Hülkenberg	P19
Mark Webber	Retired
Charles Pic	Retired
Giedo van der Garde	Retired