I was sitting in my sister´s car heading home from the spa hotel when the lights went out at the Buddh International Circuit. I was feeling sooo restless. I knew Sebastian was out there driving and I had absolutely no idea of the things happening on the track as I wasn´t there to watch the race live on TV. A lot of things were going through my mind... A thought of Sebastian clinching his fourth world championship without seeing it happening felt really uncomfortable to me. And then... When I jumped in my own car and started heading home, the pilot lamp warning of an engine issue suddenly lit and I had to park my car on a bus stop by the road! Luckily my husband came to "rescue" me and I got home in time to see the replay of the race...!
Well, what can I say about today´s race? Actually I have only a fuzzy vision of the race in my mind. I don´t really remember what happened at the start, who was on which strategy and who raced who... The overwhelming wave of emotions is the strongest aspect in my mind right now. And that´s because Sebastian Vettel won the Indian Grand Prix for the third time in a row and he did that in style! And what makes the emotions even stronger is the fact that Sebastian secured his 4th consecutive world championship in India today!
But let´s go back to the details of the race. Now I´m concentrating really hard not to let the emotions disturb my focus on the things that happened on the track today. Sebastian kept his lead at the start. Massa got a superb start and jumped second. Webber drove over the kerb and slightly lost the control of his car which caused him hitting first Kimi´s Lotus and then Alonso´s Ferrari. Luckily Kimi got away unharmed but Alonso´s front wing got damaged and the Spaniard dropped down to P10 and had to pit for a new front wing.
Sebastian pitted already on the second lap for the prime tyres. Kimi had his first pit stop on lap 8 and the Iceman had a few seconds´ delay because Lotus crew had to check Kimi´s car for possible damages due to the collision with Webber on the opening lap. On lap 18 Webber was leading the race and McLaren´s Perez was second. Neither one of them had pitted because they both had started to the race with the hard tyres.
After the second pit stops Sebastian was leading the race and his team-mate Webber was some 10 seconds behind the German. By lap 38 Kimi, who had pitted only once, had benefitted from his rivals´ pit stops and the Iceman was already in P3! Lotus had changed Kimi´s strategy and they were convinced that Kimi could go to the end with the same hard tyres which had been changed already at the beginning of the race. Kimi´s team-mate Grosjean shared a similar pit stop strategy, except the fact that the Frenchman´s tyres were 6 laps fresher than Kimi´s.
On lap 40 something totally absurd and unexpected happened. Webber was hit by an alternator failure and he had to stop his car on the track! The Australian couldn´t believe his ears when the engineer told him on the team radio to stop the car immediately. And this wasn´t the first time when Red Bull had issues with the alternator! It´s odd that it usually always hits Webber´s car... But Red Bull were very concerned about the reliability of Vettel´s RB9 as well!
Sebastian had a 25-second gap over his closest opponent who was Kimi in P2. Rosberg was 3rd and he was decreasing the gap to Kimi whose tyres were gone. Unfortunately there was no way Kimi could prevent Rosberg from overtaking him! The inevitable happened when there were 8 laps to go. There was nothing left of Kimi´s tyres and his lap times were lousy. Grosjean was right at Kimi´s tail and Kimi didn´t make it easy for his team-mate to make the overtaking move. We didn´t hear the discussion between Kimi and Alan Permane on the team radio but the Finnish F1 commentator Oskari Saari told that some swearing words had been used in the conversation. Permane had told Kimi in a firm voice to "Get out of the f*cking way", to which Kimi had replied: "Don´t f*cking shout". So soon there might be T-shirts for sale with that text on ... ;) Unfortunately that wasn´t the last position which Kimi lost due to the failed tactical call. Also Perez and Hamilton managed to get past the Iceman whose tyres had died completely and who had to pit for the second time at the end of the race. In spite of some reliability concerns (why Sebastian was told not to use his drinks bottle for example) Sebastian drove to the chequered flag as a race winner and 4-time world champion! And just for the celebration the German did some stunning donuts in front of the grand stand :D Rosberg finished 2nd, Grosjean 3rd, Massa 4th, Perez 5th, Hamilton 6th, Kimi finally 7th, Di Resta 8th, Sutil 9th and Ricciardo 10th. Alonso didn´t manage to finish the race on points.
Sebastian himself was emotional and speechless after the race. It´s absolutely amazing what this young German has just achieved. 4 championship titles in only 117 race starts! That´s unique. For his team-mate Webber it took 130 race starts to clinch his first win! 10 wins this season so far for Sebastian. The statistics don´t lie: you have to be exceptionally talented and motivated to achieve things that Sebastian has achieved in spite of his young age. I´m trying to find words to describe the feelings I´m going through at the moment... And once again I miserably fail! You could assume that it would become easier over the years to deal with these emotions as this is the 4th time already that Sebastian won the world championship. But believe me: it doesn´t! And if the trend of the previous three years continues, I won´t get too much sleep tonight! That man is so amazing... Out of reach of any proper words! I simply loved to watch how Sebastian did the donuts on the track and how he bowed in front of his championship-winning car. Legendary moments!
All the warmest congratulations for Super Sebastian for the incredible achievement! You made my day, no matter of the fact that I shared Webber´s fate on the road today, hahaha ;)
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