How timing was key to the Indian Grand Prix

Sebastian Vettel might have taken pole position, fastest lap and led every lap of the Indian Grand Prix but, as ever, his victory wasn't as easy as he made it look.

In fact the race was an intriguing one in terms of strategy, and there was plenty going on at the sharp end of the field. The key problem was making the switch to the harder tyre at the right time, and not leaving yourself exposed to being overtaken because it was slow to switch on.

"I think everybody was trying to stay off the hard tyre, because you could effectively change the hard on lap three and get to the end," says Christian Horner.

"The performance looked inferior to the softer tyre, and that's why particularly the likes of ourselves and McLaren went so far on the soft tyre. It just adds another element of strategy to the weekend, and it's the same for everybody at the end of the day."

The bottom line was that, if possible, you had to make the switch to the hard later than the guy you were racing.

"Normally it's an undercut where the tyre degradation has exceeded the performance benefit," Horner explains. "So you're quicker after the stop than before, on the new tyre.

"Here we feared that it would take two or three laps, or at least two laps, to get the hard tyre up to temperature. So in those two laps we'd be exposed if the car behind had been too close and we'd stop."

As so often this year Vettel did the really difficult bit on Saturday by taking pole. Come the race he made sure he stayed in front and pulled out enough of a gap to ensure he was out of DRS range of his pursuer Jenson Button.

This was the view most saw of Vettel during the Indian GP weekend © LAT

At the first stops, Vettel made sure he was the last of the top guys to pit. After the other main players came in on laps 16/17, Button stayed out until lap 18, and then Vettel came in a lap after that. It meant his tyres were a lap fresher than Button's for the rest of the middle stint, and it also helped to ensure that he could eventually make that crucial switch to the hards that much later.

"What he's been fantastic at doing this year, because it's been a bit of a voyage of discovery with these tyres, is just managing the gap, managing the pace to the car behind," adds Horner. "What we were very keen to do was establish a gap and then to ensure we were always on slightly fresher tyres.

"We would concede the undercut to McLaren by them pitting first, and of course they would eat into that gap on the out-lap. Our tyres were always that one lap fresher. We felt we'd got enough in hand to manage that."

"We knew that the warm-up on the hard tyre would be poor," admits the team's chief technical officer Adrian Newey. "So we wanted to make sure that we could stay out on the second stint as long as our competitors.

"It was clear that if we had to stop significantly earlier, then by the time we got the hard tyre up to temperature, they would have got ahead on the overcut.

"Generally speaking, and we've seen it before, the McLarens seem to have stronger warm-up than we do. They can just warm their tyres up quicker than we can."

Mark Webber was the first of the quick guys to make that crucial change to hards, coming in on lap 37. It didn't seem to help him much - ultimately of course he lost a spot to Fernando Alonso - and that encouraged both Button and Vettel to stay out ever longer.

Button finally came in on lap 46, and Vettel followed a lap later, giving himself a 13-lap run to the flag on hards.

He did actually lose a couple of seconds to Button during that sequence, but he was still 2.8s ahead after his stop, and that was more than enough to allow him to pace himself to the flag.

As close as Button got to Vettel during the race © LAT

He still allowed himself one little luxury. After Webber set fastest lap in his pursuit of Alonso, Vettel found some pace and went quicker on the penultimate lap, and then faster still on the very last lap. Hearts skipped a beat on the Red Bull pitwall!

"He knows we don't like it!" says Horner. "He's supposed to manage it by turning engine modes down and the KERS off. Short of putting a cow on the circuit, there's not a lot else we can do!

"At the end of the day we have complete trust in him; I'm sure there was still a margin in there. He likes that little statistic to complete a perfect weekend.

"We spoke about it after the last race and he said, 'I'm sorry, it won't happen again,' and two weeks later here we are!

"He's a sensible boy. I'm sure he builds in a pretty clear margin, but I think he just wanted to demonstrate what speed he was capable of today."

Button: So near and yet so far

India brought another brilliant and near-faultless drive from Button, and the only frustration for the team was that he had endured such a below-par qualifying session.

He was gifted a place by his team-mate's practice one indiscretion, and then had a brilliant first lap, getting Alonso off the start and Webber later in the lap. Had he started a little higher - maybe on the front row alongside Vettel - he might have had a better shot at a win.

"Once again it's the thing of if only we could start from pole, and make it stick," admits McLaren technical director Paddy Lowe. "Lewis had the pole in Korea, and didn't manage to make it stick on the first lap. I think we could control the race and we could win races, but again we weren't there. Even if Jenson had got P2 maybe the win would have been there for him. Unfortunately Sebastian had the pace to control it.

Once Button pitted, Red Bull was confident Vettel was out of reach © LAT

"We had a great first few corners, [Button] got P3 from Alonso and then overtook Webber."

It wasn't just about the start, in the early laps Button had to work hard to hang on to the second place he'd gained.

"For me what was particularly impressive was how he defended from Webber once the DRS came through," says Lowe.

"There were three or four laps there when Webber had the DRS, and I thought Jenson was a goner, as you saw.

"Actually he would have been, but he took some brilliant lines through Turn 4 to just defend the position legitimately. It was very, very close.

"Then at some point Webber had taken too much out of the tyres, and Jenson managed to leave him behind.

"As long as Webber's in the DRS zone he's gaining lap time on two straights, which makes it easy for him to stay with you. The minute you break that tow, then you've got the defence, the guy is then losing lap time relative to you."

Attention turned from defence to attack as the team sought a way to use strategy to challenge Vettel. As already mentioned, it was all about the timing of the change to the hard tyre.

"I guess Red Bull brought in Webber for a bit of a data point," says Lowe. "That was what we concluded. The data point didn't look very good, did it? When we watched those guys we then reached the conclusion quickly, as I'm sure they did with Vettel, that we would string out the soft tyre for as long as it would go, without wearing out.

"Then they reached a point where actually the lap time of the guys on the hards became equal to us, and then we made the call. Then with Vettel it obviously made sense to just shadow us."

Once Button came in, McLaren knew that Vettel would remain out of reach. Nevertheless, second was a great result for the 2009 world champion.

Hamilton qualified second, but started fifth as his weekend went downhill © LAT

"It was a fantastic drive, really well controlled, as we're seeing more and more from Jenson. I think if he'd had a better day on Saturday he could have won the race," says Lowe.

At the start of the year the consensus was that a 'smooth driver' couldn't do much to protect his tyres, as it was all just a factor of mileage and laps completed. But Button continues to find a little extra.

"It's still dominated by mileage," Lowe agrees. "But at the margins you can make a small difference. I think Jenson's proving again that he's a great race driver.

"It's not just about managing tyres, it's about staying in control, good defence, attacking when you can, managing the traffic. It was a very mature drive."

For Lewis Hamilton, it was another nightmare, one that started when he picked up his three-place yellow flag penalty in first practice.

The real story of that is an interesting one. It seems that as Pastor Maldanado's car was being craned away, the guy on the yellow light at the preceding post lost sight of it, due to the layout of the barriers.

He thought the trackside grass was clear, and switched off the light. That in turn affects the yellows on the track map, on the lap counter on the TV screens, and in the cockpits.

However, the car and marshals were in fact still exposed, and there was a guy furiously waving double yellows. And even if all the electronic yellow signals are out, a flag still has equal value and has to be respected.

The team told Hamilton the track was clear, he finished the lap, and then pointed out on the radio that he had seen yellow flags. He was bang to rights, in other words. It was a great shame, because Hamilton starting from second place might have led to a different kind of race.

Hamilton's practice woes started his downhill turn © LAT

"If Lewis had had a better Friday..." says Lowe with a smile. "He's not upset about Friday, he made a mistake, and he doesn't have a problem with it.

"Unfortunately, the flag you see you do have to obey. He wasn't down in the dumps about it over the weekend; he got on with it and did a fantastic qualifying time.

"If he'd started at P2 he could have been up there controlling the race and winning it himself. As it was he didn't have a great first lap, and then he started to have to work hard at it and chip away.

"I think he would have picked off both Ferraris in due course, but he had his incident with [Felipe] Massa. Obviously he damaged the wing, and we changed that. Then he had a vibration from a flat-spot, which was not related."

Hamilton has two more chances this year to end his season on a high. Can he do it?

Webber v Alonso: A surprise outcome?

Webber was in the unwelcome position of starting second and then later in the race finding himself in fourth, trying to recover third from Alonso.

The pair have scrapped on track several times this year, and unlike another combination of drivers, they have managed to avoid any dramas.

India didn't quite become a wheel-to-wheel contest between the pair - another couple of laps would have helped - and was more about strategy.

Webber lost out because he was struggling more than most with soft tyre degradation, and that forced him to declare his hand and make an early stop for hards (although, as Lowe notes, he also gave Red Bull some handy data for Vettel).

The Australian had already got himself into tyre trouble in the first stint, using them a little too hard in his pursuit of Button.

"That's what we were concerned about, that early on he was giving the tyres a hard time," says Horner. "Then he seemed to find a rhythm that was reasonable.

"But then in the second stint the tyres went away from him, and obviously Fernando closed in, and had more in hand at that point.

Alonso passed Webber at the second stops and held him behind © LAT

"And then you're exposed whether you stay out, or try to pit ahead of him. You're in almost a vicious circle by that stage."

When he came in on lap 37, Webber was about 1.5s ahead of Alonso. But after Fernando stayed out for two crucial laps on his old soft tyres, the Ferrari emerged from its stop in front.

"Mark had signalled to us that he wanted to pit that lap," says Horner. "And the dilemma that you find yourself in is that because his tyres were effectively finished, he's either possibly going to be overtaken, maybe go off because the tyres are in such bad shape, or Fernando comes in and gets the undercut on the other tyres.

"The only real chance we had of staying ahead, despite the fact that we knew the out-lap performance of the hard tyre wasn't great, was to pit - and so we pitted for the hard.

"Unfortunately the out-lap performance just wasn't strong enough. Despite getting a run on him while Fernando was struggling to get his tyres up to speed, he just couldn't make the move stick."

The big surprise was that Alonso was able to hold on at all, given the form Ferrari has shown on the hard and medium tyres this year. At several races the Spaniard has drifted down the order after proving a sitting duck for quicker cars.

"They've looked reasonable here all weekend," says Horner. "I think that even in the last race they were pretty competitive on the harder tyre. Mark just couldn't find a way past."

"His big opportunity to get back was when Fernando stopped later for the hards," adds Newey. "Because while he was ahead, the tyres were cold. But it didn't come off."

It didn't work, and the bottom line was that it was another great race from Alonso, the man who always delivers the goods and arguably has been flattering the Ferrari all year.

"Fernando did a really great performance, after a difficult start when he lost a position in the first corner," says Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali. "In that respect the only chance we could have had to overtake Mark was to do something different in terms of strategy, so I think the team reacted very well.

"We said to Fernando we need to push one or two laps depending on how the tyres were behaving, and on that I think we made the right choice, and I'm very happy with that.

"At the end he was able to match the pace and control Mark, who was very aggressive behind, so I think he had a very good race."

Seventeen down, two to go. The championship might be over, but those final races could provide us with some more intrigue.