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Sebastian Vettel clinching the title at the Japanese Grand Prix weekend was an outcome that was never really in any particular amount of doubt, as likely an outcome as the suggestion that Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton would find a way to crash into each other at some point during the weekend. Given the fearsomely bulletproof reliability that Red Bull have managed so far throughout 2011, and the fact that the German needed just one more point to secure back-to-back titles, it would actually have been more difficult for him to engineer a way to not leave Suzuka with the title than anything else.

His only remaining title rival, McLaren's Jenson Button, did at least hold up his end of the somewhat shakey 'let's drag the championship out for another week' bargain, putting in a measured drive to take the victory he needed to maintain any faint hope of keeping the embers of the championship alive until the Korean Grand Prix this Sunday. It was also the 2009 champion's first win for the Woking team in dry weather conditions, without the lottery of showers to help his cause, and as good a win as he has ever crafted in the sport.

But although Vettel's chances of wrapping up his second title with a gleeful tenth win of the season were snatched away, he cruised home in third to clinch the title with plenty of room to spare. The finishing touches had been added to a title triumph as ruthlessly efficient as anything that Michael Schumacher ever managed, and for the rest of 2011 the Red Bull man can simply drive with records in mind. The pressure is off, the championship is over.

Practice and Qualifying

For a moment during the Suzuka weekend, there was a hint of a suggestion of a rumour that Vettel might be feeling the pressure. In the closing stages of the somewhat quiet and uneventful opening practice session, the German grabbed the headlines in all the wrong ways, as he ran wide out of the Degner 1 corner and slid off into the tyre barriers. The crash itself was low-speed and the damage to the RB7 was minimal, but it was still an attention-grabbing moment, and one that suggested for a while that there could still be a late twist in the championship.

Vettel was already under a modicum of pressure before the crash, as McLaren swept to a 1-2 in the session at a circuit where Red Bull had been expected to dominate following Vettel's dominant wins in 2009 and 2010. Jenson Button topped the times from Lewis Hamilton, with the champion-elect only third and Fernando Alonso fourth for the Ferrari squad.

The crash also damaged Vettel's newly-upgraded front wing, the only version of Red Bull's latest design available to the German, aside from the one on Mark Webber's car. But the team avoided the possibility of a Winggate-type scenario similar to Silverstone last year, and managed to fly a replacement design out to Suzuka before the start of qualifying. Vettel thanked the team for their efforts by not crashing and breaking it again.

There was further dominance from Button in FP2 on Friday afternoon, as the McLaren man led the session both during the early prime tyre runs and the faster mid-session option tyre runs. The 2009 champion finished just under two tenths of a second faster than Alonso, while Vettel once again ended the session in third place. Further back, Hamilton could only manage 8th after his own option tyre run was ruined by yellow flags caused by Pastor Maldonado's broken-down Williams.

That incident ended a catastrophic session for the Grove-based team, after Rubens Barrichello had conspired to crash at the same corner as Vettel's FP1 prang. Elsewhere, the main entertainment for the session came from the home hero at Sauber, with Kamui Kobayashi pulling off the save of the season after getting his car perpendicular to the preferred direction of travel through 130R midway through the session. The Japanese driver held on and somehow caught the slide, and put a lot of smiles on faces in the process.

Into Saturday, and Button's surprising run of practice form continued as he finished top of the final hour of meaningless lapping. McLaren had clearly got some genuine pace, with Hamilton again shadowing his team mate home in second, while Vettel had to settle for third, which was becoming a familiar position for him as the weekend wore on.

For qualifying, then, it looked as though Red Bull's pole position run was finally set to be broken. And then McLaren failed, badly. After the first runs in Q3, Hamilton was top of the times from Button and Vettel. But coming around to the line to start his final run, Hamilton inexplicably began to dawdle at the final chicane, and both Webber and Michael Schumacher were forced to pass either side of him in order to try and make the line and start a lap before the chequered flag came out.

Hamilton, having slowed and then slowed further when he was swamped, missed the cut, and pole position was gone, which left Button leading the McLaren challenge to Vettel. All around the lap the pair matched each other sector-by-sector, but it was Vettel that eventually sneaked onto his twelfth pole of the season, just 0.009 seconds ahead of Button. Hamilton had to settle for third, with Massa outqualifying team mate Alonso for only the third time all season in fourth. Mark Webber could only manage sixth, and it's probably best that we don't really talk about it.

Behind the Australian, no times were set by any of the other Q3 runners, re-igniting fan anger over the slightly naff state of 2011's qualifying sessions. Kamui Kobayashi took seventh in front of his home crowd, being placed ahead of his fellow time-less people by virtue of him actually having attempted a lap, while Schumacher and Renault pair Bruno Senna and Vitaly Petrov completed the top ten with 'No Time Set's of their own.

Meanwhile, there were two big fallers in the early stages of qualifying. Sergio Perez may not have made it through to Q3, but he wasn't even given the chance when his Sauber suffered an outbreak of car knack in the second part of qualifying, leaving him unable to set a time and 17th on the grid. Car issues also accounted for Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg, who failed to make Q3 for the first time this year and was left 23rd on the grid. The stage was set for a mildly-unimpressive recovery drive.

The Race

After two days of glorious sunshine in Suzuka, the weather remained fine and clear for raceday, and Vettel led the field around on another formation lap sitting just 53 laps and a top ten finish away from his second consecutive title. Was there any trace of nerves from the man preparing to dot the i's and cross the t's on becoming the youngest-ever double world champion in Formula One history? Not really, to be perfectly honest. "I am going for glory," he smiled at the BBC, moments before the start of the race, scotching suggestions that he might spend the race pottering about in 10th place.

But maybe the enormity of what he was set to accomplish was playing on his mind slightly as the lights went out, because Vettel's start was uncharacteristically tardy, as he bogged down compared to the McLaren alongside him. Button looked set to take the lead, but Vettel adopted the traditional modern-day approach to a bad getaway from pole, and chopped across the front of the 2009 champion, to the point that Button was forced to put two wheels on the grass and cede the place. "I ended up backing out," Button admitted afterwards, "I had to, because it would've been an almighty shunt into Turn 1."

Vettel, for his part, insisted that he had not seen the McLaren until it was too late, despite onboard replays seeming to show him looking right out of his car as he moved across. Either way, the severity of Vettel's swerve saw the incident investigated by the stewards, and a few onlookers speculated that a drive-through was in order, not least Button himself, who called for a penalty over the pit radio. But, possibly concerned about the precedent that would be set by starting to penalise chops off the line, the stewards decreed that no action was to be taken.

So, with the Schumie chop successfully executed, the German kept the lead, while Button found himself forced down to third place by his team mate, Hamilton taking advantage of Button's compromised getaway to swep around the outside into the first corner. Behind the frontrunning trio came Massa, Alonso, Webber and Schumacher, while the Force India duo of Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil both made good starts to leap up to 8th and 9th ahead of Petrov. It was bad news for the home hero though, as an anti-stall issue on Kobayashi's Sauber saw him fall down to 12th place.

But while Vettel held the lead, it quickly became clear that he was not going to quickly drop the field with the consummate ease that he had done two weeks ago in Singapore. As the cars circulated through the opening few processional laps, Hamilton gamely stuck to his shadow behind him and the Red Bull man was unable to extend too much of a workable lead. By lap 5, the gap was a mere 2.3 seconds, though Button had initially dropped off by a second a lap, and Alonso and Webber were stuck bottled up behind the predictably tardy Ferrari of Massa.

That situation changed on lap six, as Alonso finally managed to get a run on Massa down the DRS zone, aka the start/finish straight, and he eased past his team mate to take fourth place into the first corner. That released Alonso and allowed him to start chasing down Button ahead of him, and left Webber to contend with the Brazilian. Aside from that momentary spot of action, the only other moves being made were by recovering duo of Perez and Rosberg. By the end of lap eight, the Mexican ran 16th and the German was 18th.

Hamilton continued to shadow the race leader through the next few laps, but at the end of lap eight, his hopes of the win unravelled. A slow puncture in his right rear Pirelli - possibly a legacy of his qualifying hiccup, which meant he had to start the race on the older set of softs he had completed his first Q3 run on - forced him to slow through 130R, ceding second to Button, and he dived straight into the pits for fresh boots, dropping him to 11th place and costing him time that would see him continue down the order as the rest of the field cycled through their first stop.

Vettel was in next time around, and the rest of the frontrunners followed over the next couple of laps. The net result was that Vettel resumed 2.5 seconds ahead of Button at the end of lap 12, with Alonso now 1.7 seconds behind the McLaren in third and the delayed Hamilton dropping down to fourth, with Massa - his nemesis from Singapore - right behind him and Webber still sixth. As with the first stint, there was little sign that Vettel had the car performance to significantly extend that lead over Button as the race dragged on, but he at least maintained the lead fairly comfortably.

If the fight at the front was looking straightforward, the midfield battle was the usual crazy mix of strategies and tyre types. Vitaly Petrov briefly improved his lot having taken advantage of his no-show in Q2 to choose to start on the harder prime tyres, but was swamped by quicker drivers as they emerged from their stops and dropped down the order when he came in for more primes. Elsewhere, both Perez and Rosberg continued to climb the order, with the two-stopping Mexican up to 10th by lap 19 and Rosberg running 14th after he ditched the primes he had started on for softer options. 

At the front of the field, the action was still close, if not threatening to break out into a rash of overtaking any time soon, with the gaps between all of the top six all slightly too much to really allow for any passing attempts. With 19 laps in the books, Vettel was less than ten seconds ahead of his team mate Webber back in 6th. Meanwhile, Hamilton was struggling with tyre degradation issues again after his early first stop, and Massa and Webber were slowly but surely closing in.

As the two crash buddies prepared to start playing another game of 'bash the sidepod', Red Bull pitted both of their drivers at the end of lap 19. At the time, it seemed to be a perfect tactical decision, with Vettel away and serviced as Webber slotted in for his new tyres, and theoretically both now had the chance to undercut themselves an advantage over their rivals. But a combination of Vettel's stop and out lap, and Button's in lap and immediate stop in reply was enough for Button to emerge from the pit lane now ahead of the German. The lead had changed hands, and Button had used the good old pit stop strategy approach to secure it. 

Once Alonso, Hamilton and Massa all made their own stops, Button was clear in the lead, from Vettel, Alonso, Webber and Massa. But almost immediately the safety car was scrambled onto the track, with some guilty-looking debris sitting on the track at both turn 7 and turn 16. The debris at turn 7 was courtesy of a dubious move on Schumacher's slow Mercedes by Webber, which saw him clumsily drive into the side of the Mercedes and clip a bit of wing off his car.

Meanwhile, there was a more familiar duo to blame for the second piece of debris. Massa and Hamilton had been together through 130R on lap 22, with the Brazilian getting a better run through the corner. After their Singapore ding-dong, Massa might have been forgiven for hanging back and waiting for the McLaren man's inevitable stop on his failing tyres, but he ended up jinking to the left of the silver car on the run to the Casio chicane, more out of necessity because of his extra speed than out of a genuine desire to pass. Hamilton, unaware that the Ferrari was there, drifted across and the pair made minor contact, with Massa's front wing being damaged. Cue debris, and cue safety car. 

A familiar crash, and a familiar reaction. "I went to the left-hand side and I braked there. I stayed on my line; he moved his car and touched my car," Massa wailed, "There's nothing more to say. For what he says, I don't care. I care about what the federation says and what the FIA does." For the FIA's part, what they did was very little. Hamilton got through this incident without his usual drive through penalty, and even discovered an excuse after the race. "The only thing I have to say is that I can't see anything out of my mirrors," he explained dubiously, "Maybe that's something we can fix and maybe then we'll have no problems with him..."

The safety car stayed out until lap 28, as the Japanese marshals took their time to sweep up the track of the offending items, and Button controlled the restart comfortably, pumping in some immediate strong lap times to extend a 2.8 second lead over Vettel by lap 32. Further back, the order remained relatively static, with Alonso not able to keep up with Vettel and Webber falling back from the Spaniard in fourth. Behind the Australian came Massa, Hamilton and Schumacher, with the impressive Perez now up to 8th, di Resta 9th and Sutil 10th. Rosberg was now 11th, and had been helped in his quest for points now the safety car had closed the pack back up again.

The final round of stops was kicked off by Vettel on lap 34, coming in for the third time to take his perfunctory set of prime tyres for the race. His early third stop ended up going as badly as his early second stop, because he emerged down in 11th place, behind a whole bunch of traffic. Although he picked off the Mercedes of Rosberg without much issue, and then passed the Force Indias to move up to 6th, he was losing time in amongst the traffic, and after Alonso made his own final stop on lap 38, he was able to emerge comfortably ahead of the Red Bull. Another superhuman drive from the Spaniard in his often-hapless Ferrari was paying off.

After the final stops for the leaders then, which featured a nice race-leading cameo from the late-stopping form of Michael Schumacher, leading a lap for the first time since the 2006 race at the Suzuka track, Button led by 5.4 seconds on lap 42 from Alonso, with Vettel swarming all over the back of the Ferrari, and not looking like a man that simply had to finish in the top ten to secure a championship. Behind the German came Webber, Hamilton, Schumacher and Massa, the Brazilian's race collapsing when he was passed properly by Hamilton into turn one on lap 38, and then lost out to his former Ferrari team mate in the stops. Perez, Kobayashi and di Resta completed the top ten. 

The closing stages saw the front three closing up in tantalising fashion. Vettel was sneaking the odd passing effort around the outside at turn one, but as well as batting away the German's attentions for lap after lap, Alonso was slowly but steadily whittling down Button's lead. On lap 45 it was 4.8 seconds, then 3.7, then 2.9, then 2.1, then 1.6 and then 1.0 by lap 50. The Spaniard was doubly determined to challenge the McLaren after he secured a bit of breathing room over Vettel when the German was held up lapping a slow Virgin Racing car.

But, it turned out that Alonso's savaging of Button's lead had been as much down to the McLaren man cruising with fuel-saving issues as it had been about Alonso's skills, and with three laps to go Button stepped back on it, pumping in a new fastest lap to bring the gap back up to around two seconds and keep things comfortable after that minor scare. He took the flag 1.1 seconds ahead of Alonso to secure a well-deserved win, his fuel issues proving themselves when 

But all eyes were on the man in third, as Vettel took the chequered flag and the final podium place to confirm his back-to-back titles, and an eruption of joy from the Red Bull pit wall. Inside the car, Vettel was altogether more composed compared to the tears of his dramatic last race title triumph a year ago. "We took nothing for granted, and we did it," he solemnly declared over the radio as he took in the applause of the fans on his slowing--down lap. Not the best line in the history of iconic one-liners, but he's got a bit of time to practice before the next time.

Webber came home a quiet fourth in the second Red Bull, with Hamilton falling back in fifth over the final laps with further tyre issues, while Schumacher beat Massa to the line in 6th. Perez completed the recovery drive of the day to take 8th place, despite suffering from flu all weekend and being hamstrung by his qualifying issues that had left him 17th.

Behind Perez, there was plenty of entertainment in the final laps in the fight for the final two points places. Sutil looked on course for 9th with a handful of laps to go after passing team mate di Resta and Kobayashi's Sauber, the latter with a sensational move into 130R on lap 45. But the soft tyre-shod Petrov and Rosberg were the ones to watch, and the pair of them came charging through the traffic line astern, getting ahead of di Resta on lap 46, Kobayashi a lap later and then picking off Sutil on lap 49 to take 9th and 10th, the latter recovering from 23rd on the grid.

That left Sutil and di Resta 11th and 12th for Force India, ending the race where they started despite running in the points for most of the race, while Kobayashi was an unhappy 13th in front of his home faithful. Pastor Maldonado was 14th for Williams, ahead of Jaime Alguersuari's Toro Rosso and the second Renault of Bruno Senna, who was delayed by a poor start from 9th on the grid and then lost further ground with a very tardy first pit stop.

Rubens Barrichello was 17th for Williams, while Heikki Kovalainen led the newbie runners home in two-by-two formation, ahead of team mate Jarno Trulli, and then the Virgins and the HRTs, with Daniel Ricciardo ending ahead of team mate Tonio Liuzzi after the latter barely completed a lap in practice or qualifying, and went off the track with a spin at the Esses on lap 6. The only retirement was Sebastien Buemi, who pulled off the track on lap 12 when his right front Pirelli was incorrectly attached at his first pit stop.

We got 23 of the 24 starters home at the end of the race, but only one really mattered. Vettel's tour back round to the pits after taking the chequered flag was marked by a touching salute from German elder statesman, and multiple world champion, Michael Schumacher. "That's really weird because when I was a little boy he was already Formula 1 world champion," Vettel humbly admitted afterwards, as the fact that he was now a double champion sank in. Perhaps in the future it might be seen as the moment the baton was officially passed from one German domination machine to another.

For the rest of the season, more minor championship matters will concern everyone. The constructors championship remains mathematically open, though Red Bull have an imposing 130 point lead in that over McLaren, while there is still an intense four-way fight for the runners-up spot in the drivers standings, led by an increased lead of eight points by Button.

But the main championship fight is over, and Vettel's place among F1's double champions is assured. And after coming up with a bit of a naff one-liner after taking the chequered flag, he had another go on Sunday evening while soaking up the adulation of the appreciative Japanese crowd: "Sunny days, a lot of fans, everyone excited to see what you do. I think that is what life is about."

Driver of the Race

Jenson Button - The two leading contenders for the 2011 'Best Driver Not Called Sebastian' Award, Button and Alonso, both have a minor issue when it comes to us trying to figure out precisely how good a job they're doing this year. Namely the fact that their main yardsticks - their respective team mates - are performing so haplessly. So it's hard to tell whether both are performing miracles, or simply doing an average job in average cars, which are simply being made to look great in comparison to the dismal years of Messers Hamilton and Massa.

Still, for the moment, we'll give both the benefit of the doubt, which means that Button just about gets the nod over Alonso for the DotR award thanks to a performance that was as good as any he's managed since joining the Woking team. He overcame Vettel's chop, took the lead with a canny turn of speed at the right time and then responded to Alonso's late challenge with dismissive style. If the phrase 'Jenson Button, World Champion' still sounds a bit odd, then 'Jenson Button, McLaren Number One' sounds odder. But at the rate we're going, you'd better start getting used to it.

Moment of the Race

Lap 53 - There were plenty of mildly entertaining moments during the race, from Hamilton and Massa's latest paint-exchanging exercise, to Adrian Sutil's brilliant pass on Kamui Kobayashi into 130R, slightly showing up F1's overtaking master at his home track, and the BBC's Eddie Jordan describing the Renaultus v Findia fight as a battle between "the hare and the dog". But frankly, the enduring image of the 2011 Japanese Grand Prix will be the end of the race, and Vettel crossing the line to secure title number two. Not the most surprising moment of the season so far, granted, but certainly one of the defining ones.

Quote of the Race

"I lost some time between one of the Virgins. I don't know, there aren't many Virgins in Formula One..." - Sebastian Vettel shows that his impish sense of humour wasn't affected by the moment in a post-race interview with the BBC. Cue much childish giggling from all involved.

Patronise F1's Japanese GP Index

Race Preview - Japanese Grand Prix

Minute-by-minute reports:
Free Practice 1
Free Practice 2
Free Practice 3
Japanese GP Qualifying
Japanese GP Race

Session reports:
FP1 - Button heads FP1 as Vettel crashes out
FP2 - Button stays ahead in second practice
FP3 - Button completes practice sweep in FP3
Qualifying - Vettel secures Japan pole after epic scrap
Race - Vettel makes history with second title win

Post-race coverage:
Five talking points from the Japanese GP
Fifth Column - Japan

The Results

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