After his great pole position yesterday, Sebastian Vattel took his place on the history book, as the youngest formula 1 grand prix winner, earlier today. It has been a fascinating race, the best race we have seen this year, and one of the best races during the last few seasons.
The race started behind the safety car, and Vettel kept his lead after the first turn. Kovalainen stayed behind him. Everybody new that he was carrying little fuel, but this was not completely correct as it has been proven.
The rain calmed down during the first half of the race but the track was still full of water. The young German kept his lead easily, exposing Heikki Kovalainen and his team, who was unable to follow. Later on the race we realized that he had a similar strategy with Heikki and the others who were on a two stops strategy. This makes his victory even more great.
Far behind, Lewis Hamilton was fightong with Kimi Raikkonen. It took the Briton a few laps to get his pace but when he did, he started an unbelievable race, with great driving and countless overtakings which lead him from 13th, up to the second place. He was on a one stop strategy and he would have stayed at least second if the rain had lasted longer.
Unfortunately for him, the track started drying and he had to get back to the pit lane to change his extreme weather tyres to intermediate.
Raikkonen couldn't find his pace during the whole racing session and stayed far behind, struggling behind much slower cars. Felipe Massa has also been slow, and just managed to stay ahead of Lewis Hamilton on position 6 in the end.
Generally the race had everything. Overtakings, and we mean many of them, formula 1 cars sliding in all possible ways, nearly in every corner and a great amount of car control from their drivers. Most of them had impressive moments in many parts of the race. Also we had surprises, beginning with the winner, and also Fernando Alonso who was fourth, down to the 6th and 7th places (Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton) and also Kimi's inability to be competitve.
The only retirement was that of Giancarlo Fisichella.
We can only hope that we will be able to watch more races like this, as this is tha salt and pepper of race driving.
The results are as follows :
01 S. Vettel Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:26:47.454
02 H. Kovalainen McLaren + 12.512
03 R. Kubica BMW + 20.471
04 F. Alonso Renault + 23.903
05 N. Heidfeld BMW + 27.748
06 F. Massa Ferrari + 28.816
07 L. Hamilton McLaren + 29.912
08 M. Webber Red Bull + 32.048
09 K. Räikkönen Ferrari + 39.468
10 N. Piquet jr. Renault + 54.445
11 T. Glock Toyota + 58.888
12 K. Nakajima Williams + 1:02.000
13 J. Trulli Toyota + 1:05.900
14 N. Rosberg Williams + 1:08.600
15 J. Button Honda + 1:13.300
16 D. Coulthard Red Bull + 1 laps
17 R. Barrichello Honda + 1 laps
18 S. Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso + 1 laps
19 A. Sutil Force India F1 + 2 laps
Did not finish
20 G. Fisichella Force India F1 + 41 laps
