2011 Turkish Grand Prix - Another Sunday stroll for Vettel

SALUTE: The Red Bull mechanics cheer Vettel home to a crushing win

ISTANBUL Park saw another epic race in the 2011 Formula one season.  However, whilst the Turkish Grand Prix saw plenty of action down the field, it was another Sunday afternoon stroll for Sebastian Vettel.  The world champion led all but one lap to register his third win from four races in 2011.  Team-mate Mark Webber secured Red Bull’s first 1-2 of the season, winning a long-race dice with Fernando Alonso.  The Spaniard returned to form this weekend to record Ferrari’s first podium of the season.

    Having smashed his car against a barrier on Friday morning in the wet and missing the dry second session in the afternoon, you would have thought that Vettel might have ended on his backfoot.  Not so, as he dominated qualifying, then blitzed the field again today.  Most of the opposition must begin to feel that the Vettel/Red Bull combination looks almost invincible at the moment.  Any hope of him being challenged hard went at the start.  Whilst he shot into the lead, Webber was slow away from the dirty side of the grid and lost position to Nico Rosberg.  By the time he passed Rosberg, on lap 4, Sebastian was already seven seconds clear and away.  Although Webber and Alonso pegged the gap for most of the remainder of the afternoon, Vettel won as he pleased and even made an extra pitstop when he didn’t need to in the last ten laps – which showed the comfortable position he was in. 

DICE: Button and Hamilton entertained the crowd early on

     The other prime challenger was expected to be Lewis Hamilton.  However, an optimistic lunge around the outside of Webber at turn four on the first circuit cost Lewis and dropped him to sixth.  Unlike China three weeks ago, McLaren had no fresh tyres available for the race, hurting the chances of both Hamilton and team-mate Jenson Button.  Despite this, they thrilled the sparse crowd with an entertaining dice in the opening laps, which bought back reminders to last year’s event, when they fought for the lead.  McLaren spilt their strategies today, but with little joy.  Despite nursing his tyres, Button couldn’t make his three-stop plan work and was overhauled by a four-stopping Hamilton later in the event.  With two awful pitstops, including a 23 second stop for Lewis, due to a faulty wheel nut, fourth and sixth was some consolation from an average McLaren weekend.

     With Rosberg unable to keep up his formidable practice and qualifying pace, it was left to Alonso to take the attack to the Red Bull’s.  With Vettel away and gone, Fernando set his sights on Webber.  He used his DRS system (which was far too easy to pass today) to drive clean past the Australian at half-distance into turn twelve.  With a fresher set of tyres saved from qualifying, Webber returned the compliment with six laps to go at the same corner, in the best dice of the race.  He held on, but Alonso has given Ferrari some encouragement after a difficult start to the season.

CLOUT: Petrov's pass on Schumacher started a tough day

    Rosberg seemed satisfied with fifth place at the chequered flag, as the Mercedes developed a hunger for blistering any set of rear tyres put on the car.  He charged past an ailing Button with four laps remaining to score another positive result.  For team-mate Michael Schumacher, it was another forgettable day.  A clumsy attempt to keep Vitaly Petrov back early on left the seven-time world champion with a damaged front wing, and he ultimately finished out of the points in 12^th.  Felipe Massa, a former master of Istanbul also wound up out of the points, after two diabolical pitstops, spoiling his race, which included some bullish overtaking moves, particularly on Schumacher in the closing laps.  The Renault drivers touched early on, as Petrov’s aggressive driving saw the Russian nearly drive Nick Heidfeld into the pits and each blamed the other for the near-miss.  Heidfeld went onto have the last laugh, finishing seventh, one place ahead of Petrov.  Sebastian Buemi drove well in his Toro Rosso to wind up ninth and Kamur Kobayashi produced another electric performance to come through from the back of the field and clinch the final point, ahead of Massa and Schumacher.  Scotland’s Paul di Resta was out of luck this time round, and was one of only two retirements, with technical problems.

    Although the field are duelling it out behind very closely, 2011 is already looking like a one-man show.  Who can stop Sebastian Vettel?  On this evidence, the chasing pack need to find something fast, starting in Barcelona in two weeks time or it will be too late this season.