Sebastian Vettel beat Lewis Hamilton to victory to regain the number one slot, and take a fourth win of the season, in only five races. The two comfortably beat of Jenson Button, Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso, who had to fight for third.
The race burst to life at the very start. With much attention being cast over the fact that Red Bull had experienced KERS problems. With Red Bull KERS-less for the start, the were obviously hounded by Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, who both started on the second row of the grid. However, it was the Spaniard Alonso, who had started on the dirty side of the track, who managed to find a Ferrari sized gap into the first corner, and take the lead. Behind Alonso, Vettel had managed to squeeze out Webber to take second, with Hamilton slotting in behind the leading three. Further down the points, Jenson Button had a poor start, simply being crowded out in the first corner, and was pushed down to tenth. Going the other way, Michael Schumacher maneged to push himself up the field to take sixth.
At the front though, the four drivers were pulling away from the rest of the field. Fernando Alonso lead the train for the first 19 laps. He then pitted on lap 19 to try and cover the pit stop of Sebastian Vettel on lap 18. Vettel, taking his second pit stop, managed to use the Red Bull's stunning one-lap pace to leapfrog Alonso. Behind, Lewis Hamilton stayed out longer, until he pitted on lap 23. He came out of the pits, just four seconds down on race leader Vettel, and easily taking Alonso and Webber. Fernado and Mark then entered a race of their own. It soon became obvious that they were fighting for third, alongside Jenson Button who was on a three stop strategy, instead of doing four stops. Mark was able to use the DRS down the straight, but did not seem to have KERS at his disposal. This meant that Fernando only had to deploy KERS down the pit straight to stay in front of Mark.
Eventually, Mark passed Fernando, but only through the pit stops. Alonso pitted a lot early than Webber, meaning the Aussie could go some flying laps, on open roads, to even give him a gap to Fernando Alonso. The fighting, though, between the two drivers meant that Jenson Button was able to catch them, and he soon has passed them both. Button, being on the softer tyres at the time, had no problem in catching them, or passing them. He then maneged to create a large enough gap to ensure he had breathing space before his stint on the harder tyres.
In the last ten or so laps, all eyes were on the front two runner of Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton. Similar to the Chinese Grand Prix earlier this year, Lewis had slightly newer tyres, and was able to use his DRS down the pit straight. Sebastian was also having problems with his KERS, with his race engineer continually telling him to use different settings for his KERS. However, as the Red Bull and McLaren pit crews bit off their nails, Vettel managed to hold of Hamilton to take another victory this year. Jenson Button crossed the line in third, to put both McLaren's on the podium.
Race Results
Pos - Driver - Team - Rank
1 - Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull - 1
2 - Lewis Hamilton - McLaren - 3
3 - Jenson Button - McLaren - 5
4 - Mark Webber - Red Bull - 2
5 - Fernando Alonso - Ferrari - 4
6 - Michael Schumacher - Mercedes - 14
7 - Nico Rosberg - Mercedes - 8
8 - Nick Heidfeld - Renault - 12
9 - Sergio Perez - Sauber - 37
10 - Kamui Kobayashi - Sauber - 19
11 - Viatly Petrov - Renault - 16
12 - Paul DiResta - Force India - 28
13 - Adrian Sutil - Force India - 10
14 - Sebastian Buemi - Toro Rosso - 17
15 - Pastor Maldonado - Williams - 35
16 - Jaime Alguersuari - Toro Rosso - 20
17 - Rubens Barrichello - Williams - 7
18 - Jarno Trulli - Lotus - 15
19 - Timo Glock - Virgin - 18
20 - Jerome D'Amborosio - Virgin - 34
21 - Narain Karthikeyan - HRT - N
R - Felipe Massa - Ferrari - 6
R - Heikki Kovalainen - Lotus - 13
R - Vitantonio Liuzzi - HRT - 22
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