Thaindian News

Suzuka (Japan), Oct 9 (IANS) McLaren’s Jenson Button won the Japanese Grand Prix here Sunday while Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel came third to wrap up his second World Championship title. Force India’s Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta could not capitalise on a good start and retained their 11th and 12th grid positions.

It was Button’s third win of the season and it came on a circuit which was most demanding on tyres. Vettel had the race lead for the first 20 laps but pit stop strategy and high tyre degradation pushed him behind Button and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.

Vettel now stands at 324 points to Button’s 210 followed by Alonso on 202.

Force India were off to a near perfect start with di Resta jumping to eight and Sutil running ninth by lap four. But the team’s chances were dented by a safety car intervention on Lap 24 and a three stop strategy.

“I feel we were unlucky to miss out on points today. My initial start was excellent, although I had to lift because (Kamui)Kobayashi had a very poor start and so I didn’t get the full benefit,” said Sutil.

“But after the first few laps I was ahead of the Renaults (Bruno Senna and Vitaly Petrov) and we had good pace. I think what really hurt my race was the safety car because I made my second stop the lap before it came out and lost track position. In terms of strategy, we had to go for three stops because the degradation was so high. For a while it looked like ninth was possible, but in the end we lost out to the cars making two stops as they had the benefit of soft tyres at the end of the race.”

The safety car was called following a collision between McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Felipe Massa.

For di Resta, that was the period when they got out of points contention.

“The safety car spoilt our strategy because that was our fastest part of the race and it was important to try and pull a gap. It helped the cars making two stops because they caught us in the final laps and it was very hard to defend,” said di Resta.

“Going into the final four races we know it is going to be a close battle with the teams around us. Sauber seemed to be quite competitive here and Renault look to be back on form, but we will try and fight back in Korea (Oct 14-16).

The pointless race meant Force India remained on 48 points and will have to deliver stronger finishes in the remaining four races to displace Renault, who are fifth in the Constructor’s Championship with 72 points.