Vettel wins first ever Indian GP

F1 Grand Prix, GP India, Buddh International Circuit

Sebastian Vettel has secured another perfect race weekend. He started from pole, led every single lap of the race, secured fastest lap in the final lap and won the first ever Indian GP. Jenson Button finished second while Fernando Alonso is third.

For this first Indian GP, track temperature at the start is 38°C, ambient approximately 31°C.

Ahead of the start, Ferrari engineers were extremely busy with Felipe Massa's front wing, dissembling the left front wing endplate to apparently sort out a problem with the fixture of the flap. There had already been a lot of talk about the flexing and vibration.

As the gliths went out, Vettel and Webber had a good start. Alonso got off the line quite well, but found his rear end slipping away from him into the braking for turn 1. He did however manage to recover, but he lost third place to Jenson Button.

Button though kept on moving forward as he nailed Webber on the back straight on lap 1, at that time without DRS since that is only enabled on lap 3.

More in the back, Barrichello bumped into the back of his teammate, breaking off his front wing and returning to the pits for a new wing. In the anxious braking of the cars behind, Timo Glock found himself spun after turn 1 and abandoned the race one lap later in the pits.

In turn 3 Kobayashi stopped alongside the track, likely due to damage from the incidents in turn 1.

In lap 10, Vettel leads by 5 seconds over Button. Webber is a close third, little more than a second ahead of Alonso. Massa is 5th, Hamilton 6th. A few more seconds down are Rosberg and Schumacher, the latter having had a great start yet again. Adrian Sutil is 9th.

The Toro Rosso cars meanwhile got stuck behind Senna but both managed to get past the Renault in lap 10 and 11.

On lap 13 Meldonado parks his car alongside the track after losing drive. It appears the Williams gearbox let go.

One lap later Alguersuari passes Sutil. The two Toro Rosso cars are both very close to each other, resulting in Buemi now beind right behind Sutil. Once again that didn't take too long, as Buemi easily got past the Force India one lap after his teammate did.

The events probably triggered Sutil to go into the pitlane for a new set of tyres. Paul Di Resta did so earlier on to get rid of the hard tyre phase.

On lap 16 Webber and Alonso pitted, but as they rejoined the track Michael Schumacher managed to stick in between them, costing Alonso a bunch of time.

Button pitted on lap 18, Vettel another lap later.

On lap 24 Hamilton, still running in 6th was getting closer to Massa, and finally attempted a pass going on the inside of turn 5. Hamilton had his front wheels aligned with Massa's rear wheels. While Hamilton believed he was in the right place, Massa decided to turn in. Both men bumped off the track but managed to return. Hamilton though had to pit for a new front wing as one of the attachment point had broken.

After his stop, Hamilton rejoined the track in 9th position, right behind Jaime Alguersuari. Felipe Massa meanwhile dropped 15 seconds but is still comfortably running in 5th.

2 laps later Sebastien Buemi is extremely disappointed as he gets out of his car. The Ferrari engine is steaming and has grinded to a halt.

5 minutes after the coming together with Hamilton, Massa is surprisingly handed a penalty for causing a collision. He immediately serves his penalty. One lap later Ferrari call Massa in for a new front wing after the famous front wing started to vibrate again. The team also fitted the hard tyre on the Ferrari car.

Another two laps later, Massa is out of the race with a broken front left suspension. He broke it on an orange kerb in a very similar fashion as he did in the final part of qualifying.

On lap 38 Mark Webber stops and takes on the harder tyre. Alonso by then had closed the gap to him down to a second.

Two laps later Alonso pits for the same tyre change and finds himself ahead of Webber when returning to the track. Even on the colder tyres, Alonso retains the advantage and gets some space after Webber overcooks it slightly in turn 3 of lap 41. That makes the difference between more than a second and therefore out of the DRS window.

On lap 48 Vettel is the last man of the front runners to make his final stop. He is however still 4 seconds ahead of Jenson Button. Alonso is third, 1.1s ahead of Mark Webber.

Michael Schumacher meanwhile is runnig a bit longer on the options and has yet to pit in lap 49. His teammate Nico Rosberg has already stopped and is lapping a second a lap slower than his team mate.

Schumacher pits on lap 52, going wide through the pitlane entry and then locking up into turn 1 when getting back on track. He does however rejoin ahead of his teammate with a 1.5s margin.

Home driver Narain Karthikeyan meanwhile is getting carried away in front of his own crowd, as he gets angry fists from Senna, Pérez and Webber over the course of a few laps. They all feel the Indian has not allowed them go get past quickly enough.

After going wide again, by the last lap Webber gets close again, into the DRS window of Alonso, but eventually ran out of time to get past the Ferrari.

Meanwhile Vettel ran over the finish line, winning the first ever Indian GP. Jenson Button finishes second for McLaren. And once more, Vettel got fastest lap in the final lap, which makes it a perfect weekend for him as he led every single lap of the race.