Suzuka, 9 October

Fernando Alonso said that Scuderia Ferrari had to aim for the podium in the remaining races of the season and today at Suzuka, the Spaniard delivered a super performance to hit the target with a great second place. In fact, there were times when it looked as though a win might even have been on the cards. His team-mate Felipe Massa had a more complicated afternoon, one which again saw him spend a lot of time in the company of Lewis Hamilton. The Brazilian brought his 150º Italia home in seventh spot after a gritty performance. Jenson Button took his third win of the season for McLaren, while Sebastian Vettel took the last step on the podium, which was enough to give the Red Bull driver his second consecutive Drivers’ World Championship title.


Perfect conditions, a huge crowd, it was all looking set for a great afternoon of motor sport in Japan as the lights went out for the start of the Japanese Grand Prix. From pole Vettel’s Red Bull forced Button almost onto the grass, which allowed Hamilton in the other McLaren to go second ahead of his team-mate. Behind them in grid order came Felipe and Fernando, followed by Webber, Schumacher, Di Resta, Sutil with Petrov tenth.

Lap 6 and Fernando dived inside his team-mate going into the first corner to move up to fourth, making use of the DRS zone and Fernando was now just under 3 seconds behind second placed Button. In sixth spot, Webber was half a second behind the Brazilian Ferrari driver. Lap 8 and Button moved ahead of Hamilton who immediately came into the pits to change tyres and Sutil in the Force India also came in on the same lap from ninth.

The race leader Vettel pitted on lap 9 as did Schumacher in the Mercedes. Button, Alonso, Webber and Di Resta all came in together on lap 10, with Felipe pitting from his temporary lead on lap 11, followed down pit lane by Buemi, but the Toro Rosso driver ended up parking the car at the side of the track as his right front wheel came off shortly after leaving the pits.

The run of pit stops at the front meant that while the top three order was Vettel, Button and Fernando, Hamilton had got ahead of Felipe, pushing the Brazilian down to fifth. Button built his win on a better second pit stop than the German Red Bull man when they came in on laps 20 and 19 respectively. Shortly after, as Felipe tried to get ahead of Hamilton, the two cars touched when the Ferrari was alongside the McLaren. It looked as though Hamilton moved across on his rival and they collided. A front wing end plate and the floor were damaged on the 150º Italia and a piece of debris from the Ferrari lay in the middle of the track which brought out the Safety Car for a while. From then on, Felipe’s car never handled as it should and the Brazilian struggled from then on. Webber got ahead of the Hamilton-Massa duel to go fourth when he made an earlier pit stop and the McLaren man got past Felipe going into the first corner on lap 37. The run of pit stops also saw Schumacher get his Mercedes ahead of the Brazilian. Also on lap 37, Fernando made his third and final pit stop and having gone longer than his rivals, this put him back on track ahead of Vettel to give the Ferrari man second place. In the closing stages, Fernando appeared to be closing on race leader Button, partly because the Englishman had been told to back off to save fuel, but in the last part of the 53 lap race, the positions between the top three stabilised to the chequered flag. Fernando is still third in the Drivers’ championship with Felipe sixth and the team remains third in the Constructors’. Behind the podium trio, Webber was fourth, followed by Hamilton and Schumacher, while eighth behind Felipe came Perez, the remaining points going to Petrov ninth and Rosberg tenth.

Winning again is still on the list of targets for the Scuderia and trying to do just that starts again in only a few days, with Friday’s free practice sessions for the Korean Grand Prix.