Fans at the Japanese Grand Prix witnessed what may by the last scrap between two drivers who fought over championships in the previous decade – Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso.
Alonso applied huge pressure to his fellow multiple champion for lap after lap, before gambling on a late pit stop to chase after his rival. The pair began the final lap nose to tail – but due to confusion over the race distance their teams weren’t even sure the last lap had started.
The pair tangled at the race’s original start. Vettel made a flying getaway from ninth on the grid but skidded off as he tried to pass his rival on the outside of the first corner.
The Aston Martin driver managed to get away without hitting anything, but had fallen to 16th place. Following the two-hour stoppage, he was quick to seize on a strategic gamble to get back the places he’d lost.
Alonso and Vettel’s Japanese Grand Prix radio messages
Before the cars were sent out to resume the race, drivers were briefed on the situation. In Vettel’s case, the team expected that as there was only three-quarters of an hour left, it would be impossible for the race to run long enough for full points to be awarded.
Vettel’s race engineer Chris Cronin therefore advised him that he needed to reach at least ninth place to score points. That indicates they expected no more than 50% of the race distance to be completed. In the end the race reached 52% race distance, yet the FIA unexpectedly awarded full points.
| Lap: 3/28 | |||
| Cronin | So we’re going to start running and we’re probably about 26, 25 laps, including the safety Car laps. So just so you’ve got that in mind each Safety Car lap will knock a lap off of racing from there. And because of the points the way it is this year, you actually have to, at the moment, get up to P9 to get points. I’ll keep you updated on that as we go. We don’t expect any more heavy rain between now and the end of the race. | ||
| Vettel | Okay. And we start behind the safety car. | ||
| Cronin | Correct. | ||
| Vettel | And we do have to start on extremes. | ||
| Cronin | Correct. | ||
| Vettel | And it will be a rolling start. | ||
| Cronin | That is not confirmed. Yeah, that’s not confirmed. | ||
| Vettel | Yeah, copy. | ||
| Cronin | And again, even if it’s a standing start and you decide to go to inters, we can change tyres straight away and send you down to the end of the pit lane and you’ll just get released when the Safety Car’s passed. | ||
| Cronin | So it is a rolling start, confirmed it will be a rolling start. | ||
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