Fortune shines on champion in the land of the rising sun

Monday 8 October 2012

Sebastian Vettel won the Japanese Grand Prix yesterday to blow the Formula One championship wide open with just five races left to run after Fernando Alonso spun out at the start.

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The Ferrari driver's pre-race lead over champion Vettel, who chalked up his second win in a row, was cut to four points from 29 with the Spaniard now in danger of falling behind in South Korea next weekend.

Vettel offered him a stark warning that he is not going to relinquish his title willingly, the Red Bull driver making a one-finger gesture to indicate he is still No.1 in the sport. "It was an important step but there's still a long way," said Vettel. "These things happen [Alonso's exit] and obviously you don't hope for those things to happen to yourself. We don't know what happens in the next race, it's good to take the points."Ferrari's Felipe Massa came second, a full 20.6 seconds behind Vettel, for the Brazilian's first podium finish since October 2010, with Japan's Kamui Kobayashi delighting his home crowd with third place for Sauber. That made him only the third Japanese to stand on a F1 podium, and the first since 2004. Only Aguri Suzuki, in 1990, had previously finished in the top three at Suzuka."Fantastic, unbelievable," he said, sharing a podium with Vettel for the first time since their Formula Three days and addressing the supporters in Japanese.Massa was a little less composed and seemed so out of practice at being on the podium that he knocked over his bottle of champagne, spilling some of it on the stage before he had a chance to shake the bottle as he collected his trophy.The victory was Vettel's third from pole in Suzuka in the past four years and he also set the fastest lap after leading from start to finish, despite his team warning him to be careful. In truth, he had nothing to worry about – with Massa far behind and Kobayashi fighting to keep McLaren's Jenson Button behind him right to the finish. Button, the winner last year, crossed the line 0.5 seconds adrift of the Sauber driver.McLaren's 2008 champion Lewis Hamilton was in fifth ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in the Lotus and Nico Hulkenberg for Force India.Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado scored his first points since he won the Spanish Grand Prix, ending a run of nine races without scoring for Williams. Further back in the race standings, Australian Mark Webber was ninth for Red Bull after starting on the front row following Red Bull's first one-two of the season in qualifying. He was made to fight back from last place after a collision with Frenchman Romain Grosjean's Lotus at the start.Grosjean, banned for the Italian Grand Prix in September, was handed a stop-go penalty for the incident. Webber later branded him a "first-lap nutcase" and suggested it might be time for him to take another "holiday".Australian Daniel Ricciardo took the final point for Toro Rosso and denied Michael Schumacher a top-10 placing in what was the German's final appearance in Japan before he retires at the end of the season.Any farewell was drowned out by the tumult of the race; the safety car needing to be deployed after the first lap with Alonso trudging back to the paddock after his Ferrari went spinning onto the gravel and then back on to the track to face the traffic."Five great races coming! If the enemy thinks in the mountains, attack by sea, if they think in the sea, attack by the mountains," the Spaniard wrote on his Twitter page. He was joined early in the paddock by Nico Rosberg, who collided with Williams' Bruno Senna, who was given a drive-through penalty.

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Fortune shines on champion in the land of the rising sun

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