Japanese GP. Race Report. Sebastian Vettel had a picture-perfect race around the Suzuka track to take his third win of the season and keep his championship hopes alive in the process, while Brawn GP struggled to get in the points and failed to secure the constructors title. Vettel never looked seriously challenged for the race win, after he held off the KERS-boosted McLaren of Lewis Hamilton off the line and established an indomitable lead, surviving a late safety cartriggered by a scary crash for rookie Jamie Alguersuari in order to reignite his outside chances of winning the title.
In comparison, Brawn GP again had a lacklustrue time in the race, with Rubens Barrichello managing no better than 7th and Jenson Button 8th, meaning that the team failed to even secure the constructors crown by a mere half a point, though they ended up waiting on a stewarding decision over Nico Rosberg's conduct behind the safety car in order to confirm that the teams title went down to the penultimate round in Brazil.
The end result is that Button now leads Barrichello by 14 points and Vettel by 16 points with 20 points still to play for. Still it seems as if he needs to have a pointless outing in one of the remaining races to really allo the other two into the title scrap, but with the way that this season is going, then anything is still possible.
As Vettel led away, the main fight behind him was between reigning champion Lewis Hamilton and Toyota's Jarno Trulli for the second place. Though Hamilton seemed to have the second step on the podium in the bag, he managed to get the car stuck in neutral after his final fuel stop, and Trulli was able to leapfrog him in order to give the under-pressure Toyota team their second runner-up spot in a row and cement their top five slot in the constructors standings.
The result would have been a double boost for the team after it was confirmed that Timo Glock could not compete in the race following his leg injury after his qualifying accident.
Kimi Raikkonen came home in fourth place, while Nico Rosberg took fifth place, though the security of those much-needed points were under threat after the race when it was revealed that the stewards were checking to see if the Williams man had gone too quickly in the safety car period when he came round to make his pit stop. In the end though, it was decided that no action would be taken on the German driver, after the stewards accepted that he had "reacted adequately" to the safety car.
Nick Heidfeld finished sixth ahead of the pair of Brawns, with Robert Kubica challenging Button over the last few laps for the final point, but the Pole was unable to make a decisive pass on what was another frustrating day in terms of on-track overtaking.
Highlighting the inconsistency of the current breed of cars in terms of overtaking was Heikki Kovalainen, who ran in the points early on when he was challenged by Adrian Sutil's light Force India into the final chicane, only for the Finn to tap the German into a spin on the exit of the corner in a clumsy move. The delay to the pair of them ended up helping Button into the points after the Brit spent much of the opening stint stuck behind the pair of them.
But then, later on, Kovalainen pulled off one of the moves of the season in a straight fight with Giancarlo Fisichella's Ferrari out of the pit lane. He got side-by-side with the Italian after the pit lane exit, and used his KERS device to squeeze past the red car into the first corner, despite being squeezed by Fisichella.
Further down the order, the second Red Bull of Mark Webber endured a torrid afternoon. Starting from the pit lane, his race was over almost as soon as it began, after he was forced to make three consecutive pit stops to secure his headrest and then replace a punctured tyre. His fifth race in the row without scoring a point, and the lapped Webber has found his dream season turn into a nightmare in recent races, predictably through no fault of his own.
The only two retirements were the pair of Toro Rossos, with Sebastien Buemi out early on with mechanical issues, while Alguersuari crashed shortly after his final stop, losing the car in 130R and crashing into the infield tyre barrier. The Spaniard was in the car for a while after the accident, but he seemed to suffer no serious injuries in what as a nasty-looking crash.
So Vettel has kept his faint title hopes open, and will keep in mind the story of Kimi Raikkonen's title-winning year in 2007 when he considers his title chances. Then the Finn went into the final two races 17 points behind Lewis Hamilton and still managed to win, so the German just needs to keep driving well and hoping that Button contrives to struggle at the last two races.
He certainly drove very well indeed at Suzuka.
| Race result after 53 laps | ||||
| Pos | Driver | Car | Time/Reason | Pts |
| 1 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull - Renault | 1:28:20.443 | 10 |
| 2 | Jarno Trulli | Toyota | +4.8 | 8 |
| 3 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren - Mercedes | +6.4 | 6 |
| 4 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | +7.9 | 5 |
| 5 | Nico Rosberg | Williams - Toyota | +8.7 | 4 |
| 6 | Nick Heidfeld | BMW Sauber | +9.5 | 3 |
| 7 | Rubens Barrichello | Brawn - Mercedes | +10.5 | 2 |
| 8 | Jenson Button | Brawn - Mercedes | +11.4 | 1 |
| 9 | Robert Kubica | BMW Sauber | +11.7 | |
| 10 | Fernando Alonso | Renault | +13.0 | |
| 11 | Heikki Kovalainen | McLaren - Mercedes | +13.7 | |
| 12 | Giancarlo Fisichella | Ferrari | +14.5 | |
| 13 | Adrian Sutil | Force India - Mercedes | +14.9 | |
| 14 | Vitantonio Liuzzi | Force India - Mercedes | +15.7 | |
| 15 | Kazuki Nakajima | Williams - Toyota | +17.9 | |
| 16 | Romain Grosjean | Renault | +1 lap | |
| 17 | Mark Webber | Red Bull - Renault | +2 laps | |
| 18 | Jamie Alguersuari | Toro Rosso - Ferrari | Crash fail | |
| 19 | Sebastien Buemi | Toro Rosso - Ferrari | Car fail | |
| DNS | Timo Glock | Toyota | Injury fail |
Drivers Championship Standings -
1 Button 85pts, 2 Barrichello 71pts, 3 Vettel 69pts, 4 Webber 51.5pts, 5 Raikkonen 45pts, 6 Hamilton 43pts, 7 Rosberg 34.5pts, 8 Trulli 30.5pts, 9 Alonso 26pts, 10 Glock 24pts, 11 Kovalainen, Felipe Massa 22pts, 13 Heidfeld 15pts, 14 Kubica 9pts, 15 Fisichella 8pts, 16 Sutil 5pts, 17 Buemi 3pts, 18 Sebastien Bourdais 2pts.
Constructors Championship Standings -
1 Brawn-Mercedes 156pts, 2 Red Bull-Renault 120.5pts, 3 Ferrari 67pts, 4 McLaren-Mercedes 65pts, 5 Toyota 54.5pts, 6 Williams-Toyota 34.5pts, 7 Renault 26pts, 8 BMW Sauber 24pts, 9 Force India-Mercedes 13pts, 10 Toro Rosso-Ferrari 5pts.
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