Suzuka, 7 October

Felipe Massa returned to the podium for the first time in almost two years with a great drive to second place behind winner Sebastian Vettel. The Brazilian Ferrari man shot off the line as the lights went out and then ran one of the fastest race paces. He did a great job of managing his tyres and combined with a perfect strategy from the pit wall, it delivered a result that he had really wanted, going into this race. Joining these two on the podium was local hero, Kamui Kobayashi in the Sauber.

Fernando Alonso was unlucky in qualifying yesterday and that trend continued in the worst possible way in the race: on the run down to the first corner after the start, he was nudged slightly by Kimi Raikkonen’s Lotus, which spun the Ferrari off the track with a left rear puncture, which put the Spaniard out of the race. His lead in the championship is thus drastically reduced, which is a real shame when one looks at his team-mate’s race pace and the performance of the other cars.

In just a week’s time, the F1 circus is back in action at the Korean Grand Prix.