Lap by lap coverage of the Japanese Grand Prix (Part 2)
After a disastrous start to the Japanese Grand Prix, there were just 18 cars left on the track that were following the safety car.
The safety car was expected to return to the pits by the end of the sixth lap. As expected, the safety car came into the pit lane and the race was under way once again. Sebastian Vettel answered the call and led the field into the first corner, followed
by his teammate Mark Webber, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button in the Ferrari and McLaren respectively.
The Red Bulls quickly sprinted away as it was a little close between Alonso and the pair of McLarens. Timo Glock was right on the back of Bruno Senna, trying to take 17th position away from the Brazilian. Nico Rosberg tried to make a brave move around the
outside of the Toro Rosso of Sebastian Buemi at the 130R. He ran on the damp artificial grass and almost had an accident similar to the one Lucas di Grassi had earlier in the race. Nico Rosberg was able to save the car and remained in 13th position.
Lewis Hamilton proved to be right about the gearbox of his team-mate Jenson Button and was looking for a way past him on his opposing strategy. Michael Schumacher was trying to hold back the chasing cars behind him to defend the sixth place as the German
was already two seconds down on Hamilton.
Vetted scored the fastest lap upfront as he sprinted 1.1s clear of Mark Webber and almost three seconds on the chasing Ferrari of Fernando Alonso.
Rubens Barrichello was now in seventh place hounding the Mercedes driver. Nick Heidfeld and Adrian Sutil were in quite close to each other now.
Meanwhile, Timo Glock passed Bruno Senna to take over 17th place. Ahead of him, Trulli was trying to pass Yamamoto desperately now as he was losing some vital time behind him. Vettel scored his latest fastest lap of 1m37.045s.
Hamilton was still chasing Button for the fourth place but there was no sign of a strategic switch between the two McLarens so far. Mark Webber responded to Vettel's latest lap but was now 1.5 seconds behind him.
Yamamoto kept Trulli behind him for another lap as Glock closed in to make it a squabbling trio. The battle for the 15th place was getting pretty intense now.
Nick Heidfeld was eighth, but beginning to lose ground to Barrichello. The German has Sutil, Alguersuari and Kobayashi all close behind him. The scrap between the new teams was the closest on the circuit by lap 13 as Yamamoto's HRT looked like a real handful
to drive.
Vetted scored his third fastest lap of the race this time at a 1m36.674s to pull two seconds clear of Webber and 5.6 ahead of title rival Alonso. Trulli got a bit of over steer while accelerating out of the final chicane and that ruined his attack against
the HRT as they went into Turn 1 for another lap.
During the 14th lap, Kobayashi made a banzai move up the inside of Jaime Alguersuari at the hairpin to take over 10th position. Alonso was now a comfortable 2.4 seconds clear of the McLaren pair, with Hamilton still a second behind
team-mate Button.
Michael Schumacher remained in sixth place, but fell almost four seconds behind Hamilton. Barrichello was a further four seconds behind Schumacher. Heidfeld was in eighth place and 1.4 seconds behind Barrichello while Sutil closed in on the Sauber driver
in ninth.
Vetted continued to bang in fastest sector times as the fuel was burning off with due time, suggesting his soft tyres were still in good shape Kamui Kobayashi was 10th and started to pull away from Alguersuari and Buemi in the Toro Rossos.
With the Japanese race’s conditions stabilizing, the race was becoming more entertaining with due time because of the nerve racking action that was building in all the portions of the track.
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