2013 Indian GP – Vettel clinches fourth title in last F1 race in India

On this day in 2013 Sebastian Vettel won for the tenth time in the season and clinched the fourth consecutive Red Bull drivers’championship title. It was the sixth consecutive victory for the German driver and after he won the remaining three races in 2013, he equated the record of Alberto Ascari, who celebrated the last six races in 1952 and the first three races in 1953.

The dominance of Vettel and Red Bull in 2011 was somewhat repeated in 2013 even though in somewhat different circumstances. In the first part of the season, Red Bull could not fully utilize all the potential of its car because of the very fragile Pirelli tyres (which were such to make the races more interesting).

A controversial moment occurred in the second race in Malaysia where Vettel didn’t listen to his team and attacked Mark Webber in the battle for the first place, although they wanted him to save the engine and keep positions.

The key moment of the season with the technical side and the strength of the squad team took place at the British GP when we saw multiple blows of Pirelli tires that did not withstand the Silverstone bumps and sharp kerb  edges. Tyres for 2013 are engineered to last shorter and to make racing more interesting.

When Pirelli, in German GP, introduced tyre with last year’s construction of kevlar instead of carbon, Red Bull lost only the Hungarian Grand Prix thanks to Vettel’s mistake in qualifying and great performance from Hamilton.

The remaining 10 races have been won by Vettel and Red Bull, and they have won in the last nine races in the season. Vettel won the fourth consecutive title and set new records, including a record of nine consecutive wins, as well as a record-breaking 13 wins in a season, which was only done by Michael Schumacher in 2004.

Compared to 2011, Vettel had two more wins (13 versus 11), six pole positions less (9 versus 15), one podium less (16 versus 17) and four fastest laps more (7 versus 3).

Indian GP 2013 was the third and last race held in that country. Behind the winner of Vettel, Nico Rosberg finished second in Mercedes and third was Romain Grosjean in Lotus. It was tenth podium in F1 for Rosberg.

Vettel dominated the qualifying (0.752 s in front of Rosberg, 0.822 sin front of Hamilton and 0.928 s in front of Webber), and in the race he pitted in second lap because he was on the soft tyre. On the other hand, Webber passed in Q3 on harder medium tyres and entered the pits in lap 28.

Regardless of the different strategies Red Bull should got their 1-2 with Vettel in front of Webber, but due to the failure on the alternator at Webber’s car second place was taken by Rosberg in Mercedes and third was Grosjean in Lotus.

2013 INDIAN GP RESULTS