New Track, Same Result

Despite India being introduced to the Formula One scene, there was no Bollywood style movie twist as Sebastian Vettel yet again led from start to finish. There was a sombre start to the race as there was a minute's silence to remember the lives of Dan Wheldon and Marco Simoncelli who both tragically lost their lives in motor racing incidents in the past few weeks.

 All premonitions of a dramatic race looked to come into fruition with two collisions within the first two corners. Perez, Glock, Barrichello, Trulli and Rosberg were among the cars involved but only Kobayashi suffered imminent damage to prevent him from continuing. Perez, Glock and Barrichello were all forced to pit but were able to continue until the fourth lap when Glock retired. The two winners from the start were Massa and Button who claimed fifth and second respectively.

The third retirement came on lap fourteen as Maldonado suffered a technical failure, causing the car to shut down. Unfortunately any hopes of a close race at the top were dashed as Vettel stretched his legs and Button followed suite after an initial battle with Webber.

For Massa, it must have been a race full of deja vu. The Ferrari ended up colliding with Hamilton, for the umpteenth time, on lap 24. Neither driver suffered major damage although Hamilton did drop to ninth, this may have helped the stewards who were investigating the incident and decided to issue Massa with a drive through penalty. Two laps after this incident, Buemi became the next casualty being forced out with a smoking engine, which is a shame as Buemi was racing a good race alongside team mate Alguersuari.

Massa served his drive through on lap 31 and came out in seventh with Hamilton just behind him in eighth. But that was all about to change as Massa pitted again to change his flexi front wing which was becoming dangerous, this pushed the Brazilian down to eleventh. However, Massa's race was to end prematurely as he had to retire on lap 34 after taking too much of a kerb and breaking his suspension, a la qualifying yesterday. The only other major action took place a little later with Alonso taking third from Webber by pitting a couple of laps later. Unfortunately the initial Indian Grand Prix didn't serve up a treat on Halloween weekend but there was still some incident to mull over. Race result:

1.Vettel (Red Bull), 2.Button (McLaren), 3.Alonso (Ferrari), 4.Webber (Red Bull), 5.Schumacher (Mercedes), 6.Rosberg (Mercedes), 7.Hamilton (McLaren), 8.Alguersuari (Toro Rosso), 9.Sutil (Force India), 10.Perez (Sauber), 11.Petrov (Renault), 12.Senna (Renault), 13.Di Resta (Force India), 14.Kovalainen (Lotus), 15.Barrichello (Williams), 16.D'Ambrosio (Virgin), 17.Karthikeyan (Hispania), 18.Ricciardo (Hispania), 19.Trulli (Lotus) DNF: Kobayashi (Sauber), Glock (Virgin), Maldonado (Williams), Buemi (Toro Rosso), Massa (Ferrari)