Sebastian Vettel overtook Mark Webber before the first corner and never looked back, earning him a hat-trick of race wins and now a six point over Fernando Alonso in the World Championship. Webber stuck with second to earn Red Bull the first one-two finish of the season by anyone. Alonso managed third alongside teammate Felipe Massa who is continuing a good end to the season. It was so good for McLaren as Jenson Button was ousted on the first lap and Lewis Hamilton barely clung onto tenth after a raft of problems.
Alonso had taken third place from Hamilton by the end of the first corner from the start as Massa had put himself into fifth ahead of Kimi Raikkonen. The usual carnage we're beginning to get at the start of races was this time caused by Kamui Kobayashi. It was a battle of the brakes and the Japanese got it all wrong, clipping into Nico Rosberg before bursting Button's front right tyre. The McLaren had no option to retire and the Mercedes likewise after it had emerged the radiator was now damaged and leaking.
Kobayashi was reprimanded with a drive through penalty on lap eight which just put him further last since he had already made a trip to the pits for a lengthy repair job, he had suffered a puncture and front wing damage. Ten laps later and the Sauber team decided there was no more point in running a race on his own and decided to retire Kobayashi.
Sergio Perez on the other hand was very much in the mix to begin with. He was initially on a different strategy to those around him as he started on the soft tyres instead of the super soft. But by lap-16 everyone else had pitted and Hamilton, Massa and Raikkonen all made passes on him, meaning he fell from fourth to sixth within two laps. Pedro De La Rosa's 100th race ended after 18-laps when was retired alongside Kobayashi.
Hamilton suffered some sort of tyre problems throughout and Massa was much quicker which meant the Brazilian had an easy pass on lap-21. Raikkonen was the next to challenge to McLaren and the Finn thought he had made the pass on lap-24 but Hamilton reversed it before pitting for a second time three laps later, which was rather early for a two stop strategy.
Because of the early stop, McLaren now had to resort to a three stop strategy which put him further down the order and fighting for the small points. He was passed by the opportunistic Nico Hulkenberg on lap-40 after Hamilton was embroiled in a battle with Romain Grosjean. This was the battle for sixth, seventh and eighth.
Just when Hamilton thought his race couldn't get any worse, the astroturf from one of the corners had began to tear up and one piece of it got lodged into a side pod of the McLaren. Hamilton had to race the remaining three laps with it wrapped around a bar and instead of trying to gain places he had to fend off Perez around the last corners to secure that final Championship point. Race result:
1.Vettel (Red Bull), 2.Webber (Red Bull), 3.Alonso (Ferrari), 4.Massa (Ferrari), 5.Raikkonen (Lotus), 6.Hulkenberg (Force India), 7.Grosjean (Lotus), 8.Vergne (Toro Rosso), 9.Ricciardo (Toro Rosso), 10.Hamilton (McLaren), 11.Perez (Sauber), 12.Di Resta (Force India), 13.Schumacher (Mercedes), 14.Maldonado (Williams), 15.Senna (Williams), 16.Petrov (Caterham), 17.Kovalainen (Caterham), 18.Glock (Marussia), 19.Pic (Marussia), 20.Karthikeyan (HRT)
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