Sebastian Vettel wins the Indian Grand Prix

Double World Champion Sebastian Vettel cruised to his fourth consecutive victory in the 2012 Indian Grand Prix. The young German led the race from start to finish. He was followed home by the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso and the Red-Bull of Mark Webber.

Alonso made a great start and overtook both of the McLaren’s on the long straight during the first lap. Later on, he managed to close down the gap to second placed Webber and overtook him in the DRS zone on the main straight. Mark Webber couldn’t do anything to defend the flying Spaniard as the KERS unit on his car had broken down early on in the race.

The McLaren duo of Hamilton and Button finished in fourth and fifth places respectively. Lewis Hamilton could have been on the podium but he just couldn’t get inside 1 second of Webber and so wasn’t able to deploy his DRS wing. This is the third race in succession where a McLaren has failed to finish on the podium.

Felipe Massa finished the race in sixth place. The Brazilian had to conserve fuel mid-way through the race. Kimi Raikkonen was seventh in his Lotus after spending much of the race behind Massa’s gearbox. The Finn was within 1 second of Massa but the top-speed wasn’t there in his Lotus, so he had to settle for seventh place behind Massa.

Nico Hulkeneberg drove another brilliant but unspectacular race to bring his Force India home in eighth place. This was German’s third consecutive top 10 finish in the last three races. Paul Di Resta could only manage a twelfth place.

Romain Grosjean and Bruno Senna completed the top 10. Grosjean started on the harder tyre and so had a very long first stint, but on the second stint he didn’t have the pace to challenge his team mate and so settled for ninth place.

Bruno Senna,Nico Rosberg and Pastor Maldanado had been battling hard through the first part of the race. Later, Maldanado dropped back with a puncture while Rosberg wasn’t able to defend tenth place from Senna.

Rosberg’s Team mate Schumacher had a disastrous race as the German was involved in a first lap collision with Jean Eric Vergne. This meant that Schumacher had to come into the pits early to change his punctured tyre. Following that, the legendary German couldn’t move up the order and finally retired on Lap 58.

This was the third race in succession where both Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher failed to score any points. Since Singapore, the Mercedes team have dropped back down the field and are now battling hard to get inside the top 10.

Sauber also had a bad race as Sergio Perez tangled with the Toro Rosso of Daniel Ricciardo which forced him to retire. The Mexican got a puncture after the collision with Ricciardo which then damaged the rear suspension of his Sauber.

Home boy Narain Karthikeyan couldn’t produce any sort of magic and finished down in 21st place. His team mate De La Rosa retired with what looks like a brake failure.

Here are the full results from the Indian Grand Prix:

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Grid	Pts
1	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	60	Winner	1	25
2	5	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	60	+9.4 secs	5	18
3	2	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing-Renault	60	+13.2 secs	2	15
4	4	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	60	+13.9 secs	3	12
5	3	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	60	+26.2 secs	4	10
6	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	60	+44.6 secs	6	8
7	9	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus-Renault	60	+45.2 secs	7	6
8	12	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	60	+54.9 secs	12	4
9	10	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	60	+56.1 secs	11	2
10	19	Bruno Senna	Williams-Renault	60	+74.9 secs	13	1
11	8	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	60	+81.6 secs	10
12	11	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	60	+82.8 secs	16
13	16	Daniel Ricciardo	STR-Ferrari	60	+86.0 secs	15
14	14	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	60	+86.4 secs	17
15	17	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Ferrari	59	+1 Lap	18
16	18	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Renault	59	+1 Lap	9
17	21	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham-Renault	59	+1 Lap	19
18	20	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham-Renault	59	+1 Lap	20
19	25	Charles Pic	Marussia-Cosworth	59	+1 Lap	24
20	24	Timo Glock	Marussia-Cosworth	58	+2 Laps	21
21	23	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT-Cosworth	58	+2 Laps	23
22	7	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	55	+5 Laps	14
Ret	22	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT-Cosworth	42	Brakes	22
Ret	15	Sergio Perez	Sauber-Ferrari	20	+40 Laps	8