I'm still thinking about, how Alonso could still be in the lead, if Grosjean didn't take him out in Japan. But then again, Vettel has had his share of bad luck through out the year. Thankfully, he didn't win, and Alonso minimised the damage as much as he could, which makes the Brazil race more exciting to race.
Can't wait.
Still pretty upset about Webber's KERS isssue, again!
The incident at Japan wasn't Grosjean's fault. The Lotus that Alonso was side by side with was Raikkonen. And a good portion of the blame must go to Alonso for that incident if you watch it back.
Spa however, is a different story. Alonso missed out massively there.
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In terms of who had the faster car out of Vettel and Hamilton, i'd say they were evenly matched. The Mclaren did have a slight advantage on the straight without DRS, but that was barely a tenth difference. The Mclaren looked strongest of the pack in sector 1, but the traction of the Red Bull (Possible to do with shorter gear ratios?) in sector 3 proved better than the Mclaren.
As for the personal driving styles, I believe that Hamilton and Vettel were taking better lines in sector 1 and 3 respectively. In sector 1 Vettel always ran wider through some of the turns which was slower but less damaging to the tyres. In sector 3 Hamilton was never quite as fast as Vettel, especially turn 13 where somehow Vettel was able to get on the power very early, probably by simply using more steering lock and running wide for the turn 14 kink. Turn 19 aswell, Vettel was hitting his apex across the kerb every lap, but Hamilton was always a little bit sloppier through there.
Throughout the race I don't think there was more than 2.6 seconds between the two of them, besides the pitstop phase. There was really nothing between them. The Mclaren was better on the harder tyre when it was new, which allowed Hamilton to close Vettel until he was in the DRS zone. Then after many laps of being around ~0.8 seconds behind, a backmarker held Vettel up in sector 1 where the Mclaren was already quicker, meaning the pass was inevitable. Vettel was still consistently quicker in sector 3, but he could never pass because the Mclaren always pulled out the gap in sector 1 which meant that Vettel could never get the DRS because he was always around ~1.2 seconds adrift in the zone, but towards the end of sector 3 he was only 0.8-1.0 second adrift.
In short, Both cars and drivers were evenly matched over the whole lap, the Red Bull possibly faster due to it's great advantage in sector 3. But the advantage Mclaren had in sector 1 as opposed to sector 3 meant that they were ideally placed both to get in the DRS zone and keep Vettel out of the 1 second window after the pass. That is how Mclaren won; by being faster in the parts of the lap where they needed to get close to the car infront, even if it meant sacrificing a bit of laptime in sector 3.
