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| Sebastian Vettel (left) celebrates with Sauber's Kamui Kobayashai (right) |
Sebastian Vettel (Ger) wins the Japanese Grand Prix to reduce the gap between him and Fernando Alonso (Spa) to 4 points after Alonso retired.
On the very first corner at the start of the race Championship leader, Fernando Alonso had to retire from the race.
Alonso suffered a puncture when Lotus' Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) hit the Ferrari from behind. Nico Rosberg as well had to retire from the first turn.
Mark Webber (Aus), Bruno Senna (Bra) and Romain Grosjean (Fra) were also involved in the incident on turn 1, but were able to go for pit stops to resume in the race in the back of the line. But Grosjean had to go for a 10 second stop and go penalty for being in his eighth first lap incident of the season.
Vettel is the first driver to win back to back Grand Prix's this season, as Vettel won the Singapore Grand Prix two weeks ago. That's not all, Vettel also had the fastest lap of the race on lap 52 the lap time was 1:35.774.
Vettel won the race by finishing 20 seconds before Ferrari's Felipe Massa (Bra) who got his first podium finish since his last podium finish in the South Korean Grand Prix in the 2010 season. Massa says he feels confident that he will still be at Ferrari next season.
4 seconds behind Massa was the star of the weekend.
Sauber's Kamui Kobayashai (Jap) finished 3rd in the race after fending off Jenson Button (GB). Kobayashai's first podium finish in his F1 career in front of his home fans. Kobayashai is the first Japanese driver to finish podium since Aguri Suzuki in 1990.
Kobayashai made it Sauber's 4th podium finish of the season with Sergio Perez getting three podiums at Malaysia, Canada and Italy. After the race Kobayashai has said that he wants to stay at team Sauber for the 2013 season.
Sergio Perez retired from the race after going wide on to the hair pin (turn 11) and into the gravel while trying to overtake McLaren's Lewis Hamilton (GB) on lap 20. Perez will be replacing Hamilton at McLaren at the end of the season.
Championship contenders Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen finished 5th and 6th, as Raikkonen had to fend off Force India's Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) and Williams' Pastor Maldonado (Ven).
After announcing his 2nd retirement from Mercedes on Thursday Michael Schumacher (Ger) finished a place below points range in 11th place after starting 23rd on the grid. Back in his glory days Schumacher would of won races from the back of the grid.
After today's race even though Alonso is still leading the Championship Vettel looks the more stronger opponent between the two. Raikkonen is third in the Championship with 157 points, 37 points behind Alonso. Hamilton is fourth and is only 5 points behind Raikkonen, Hamilton only has 5 more Grand Prix's with McLaren until he teams up with Rosberg at Mercedes.
"Thank you very much everyone. This is my first podium, and in Japan. Fantastic, unbelievable," - Kamui Kobayashai.
Red Bull are still on top in the constructors' championship. Red Bull are leading the constructors by 41 points with McLaren behind. With Massa's result Ferrari are 20 points behind McLaren.
There's no time for the teams to stick around in Japan as it is the South Korean Grand Prix in Yeongam starting this Friday (12th October - 14th October). Last year Vettel won the South Korean Grand Prix but the year before that Alonso won the 2010 South Korean Grand Prix, so next weekend's race could be a close one between Vettel and Alonso.
Only 5 races to go.
Let's talk sport writer
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Japanese Grand Prix Results
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Formula 1 Drivers' World Championship
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