Japanese GP: Vettel gets the hammer down

PRACTICE

Practice one - Friday am

The wry smile on Sebastian Vettel's face at the end of the first free practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix gave you all the indication you might need as to where Red Bull was in terms of pace.

The world champion was only 17th fastest and nearly two seconds slower than the session pacesetter Jenson Button, and yet there was something about the poise of the RB8 on track that had one thinking it might be the car to beat through the weekend.

Mark Webber's third fastest time was a further indication of that.

McLaren, certainly, looked most eager to challenge those Red Bulls, and so it was Button and Lewis Hamilton who headed a fairly sedate session - which was slow to warm up, as was the awesome Suzuka track itself.

Nico Rosberg was fourth fastest ahead of his retiring Mercedes team-mate Michael Schumacher, but neither had a quiet end to the session. Rosberg stopped in the Esses with a broken engine and then the seven-time champ was one of several to run off-track on the low-grip surface.

Kamui Kobayashi's sixth-fastest time was an indicator of the prodigious Sauber pace was to display later in the weekend.

Full list of times from practice one.

Practice two - Friday pm

Red Bull moved ahead as the teams began tinkering with Pirelli's soft option tyre. This time it was Mark Webber, on a fast track that suits his style, who went fastest with a 1m32.493s ahead of McLaren's Lewis Hamilton.

By now it was clear that those teams had stolen an early march through the Suzuka weekend, it was just a question of which one would hook up its machine most effectively.

Behind them there was a fair amount of chaos. First of all Paul di Resta spun at Spoon and his Force India thumped the barriers hard enough to end his session. The red flags waved momentarily too.

Then Kimi Raikkonen, in shades of Malaysia 2009, caused a full rubber-suit alert in the Lotus garage when he returned to it with an over-heating KERS battery.

Towards the end of the session Schumacher committed an identical error to that of di Resta, though on this occasion no red flag was required.

Finally, Vitaly Petrov found himself in the Turn 1 gravel trap that has played welcome host to such names as Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. Though on this occasion it wasn't the Russian's fault, his rear wing having resigned duty from its Caterham into the braking zone. Thank goodness it didn't choose 130R...

Full list of times from practice two.

Practice three - Saturday am

The final practice session gave the first glimpse of Red Bull's true pace as world champion Sebastian Vettel eclipsed Mark Webber in the final moments of the hour with a qualifying simulation time of 1m32.136s.

The fact that Felipe Massa's Ferrari was third fastest would only be a cause for consternation for the Brazilian, when he was unable to convert that pace in qualifying.

McLaren meanwhile took a backwards step as Button and Hamilton could only manage eighth and 13th fastest times respectively.

Force India had more work to do. Having spent a great deal of time repairing di Resta's machine from Friday's shunt, Hulkenberg then delivered them another trashed VJM02, having dumped it on the wall on the exit of Degner 2.

The team performed miracles and provided the German with a car that would put him in Q3 later on Saturday, but also suffer a gearbox penalty that proved to be a legacy of the crash.

Full list of times from practice three.

QUALIFYING

1. Sebastian Vettel

"It is not bad! I am very, very happy with today's result. I think we had a very smooth qualifying session, nearly perfect. I could not have asked for more. We didn't have best start to the weekend yesterday. I wasn't very happy, but it got better each time I went out. The car feels fantastic around here. I was able to pick up a bit more overnight and it all came together nicely and now we hope for a very good race tomorrow."

2. Mark Webber

"It has been a good weekend for us so far. Seb and I had a clean run in Q3 when it mattered at the start and those were two pretty big laps from both of us. We have had a bit of a rough run of late and it makes life much more difficult - so I am looking forward to the race. It is good for the championship to have our cars further up again. We can really race from there and have a good run tomorrow."

3. Kamui Kobayashi

"I achieved the maximum possible today. On my last lap I lost a bit of time because of the yellow flag when I backed off and switched off the DRS. I want to thank the team for the big step forward they have managed with the car since Friday. In the beginning we were struggling with the new parts but now we have got it right. After quite a few changes to the settings the car is fast again. From where I am starting I should have a chance to fight for a podium finish, and it would be a dream come true if I could achieve my first podium in front of my home crowd."

4. Romain Grosjean

"Yesterday we had two tricky sessions, so to have both cars in Q3 is a good recovery. We knew it would be very tight in qualifying and I think we could maybe have been one place higher with a cleaner run through the first sector, but the leaders were too quick today. We're lacking a little bit of downforce at the moment, but with a few minor adjustments overnight and the right strategy I think we can take home a good haul of points tomorrow."

5. Sergio Perez

"My last lap in Q3 wasn't perfect but still good. I am very happy for the team that we have achieved such a strong qualifying result today. They have done a great job because initially on Friday here we were really lacking pace. It was a strong and speedy recovery and I'm confident tomorrow we will be able to fight for another podium."

6. Fernando Alonso

"What can I say, other than get angry about being unlucky? The yellow flags came at the worst possible moment, when I was coming into Turn 14. Up 'til then, my lap was great and there was every chance of setting the fourth fastest time of the day, which would have then seen me start from third on the grid."

7. Kimi Raikkonen

"I spun. I was on a good lap and I was pushing - maybe a little too hard - and lost the rear. It's a shame as the car feels the best it has all weekend. If the car's good tomorrow we should be able to move forwards. Let's see what happens."

8. Jenson Button - Five-place penalty (gearbox)

"It was a good qualifying session - both my Q3 laps felt good. We've improved the car a lot since yesterday, when we tried a very low-downforce set-up to help with overtaking. We pulled back from that for today, and I feel a lot happier with the car. My gearbox penalty means it's disappointing to be starting so far back, though. Overtaking has never been easy around here - even with the introduction of DRS - and, that being the case, it's quite a surprise that the DRS zone has been shortened."

9. Lewis Hamilton

"We just made a mistake and now we are stuck with it. We made some changes going into P3 but it went the opposite way into oversteer so we didn't know what to do. We went back the other way and it was a disaster. I felt we had a great car all weekend, it was just the set-up changes and then the car would not turn anymore. We were miles off and when you start your first lap you think 'damn, I wish I had gone the other way.'"

10. Felipe Massa

"I am very disappointed with the way this qualifying went. Up until the second run in Q2, everything was going well: the car felt very quick and I was happy with its balance. But suddenly, once we fitted a new set of softs, I lost grip at the front, right from the first corner and it never returned throughout the lap. To miss out on Q3 by just 21 thousandths is a further blow."

11. Paul di Resta

"It was quite a tough session with traffic today and even on my quick lap in Q2 I was slightly compromised in the second sector. I locked a wheel and it may only have cost half a tenth, but that's how close the margin was to the top ten. I think given what happened yesterday with losing so much track time we can be pretty happy with our performance today."

12. Pastor Maldonado

"We've been working hard to make the car more competitive but for one reason or another, we just couldn't pull it all together today. We need to try to understand why, but tomorrow is going to be a long race so I'm quite optimistic. The gaps are so close and our longer run pace looks encouraging, so we aim to push for some points tomorrow."

13. Nico Rosberg

"It's been a difficult weekend for us. Qualifying in 15th place is not where we want to be although I will gain some places due to grid penalties. The times were so close today and it's disappointing that we couldn't make it through to Q3. Our pace felt better on high fuel, so hopefully this will work out well in the race and I can gain positions."

14. Daniel Ricciardo

"Without taking the grid position into consideration, this afternoon's session was great fun. Driving this circuit on low fuel and with the best tyre of the weekend - a new set of options - is very enjoyable. Today, it was really just a fight between myself and Jean-Eric in Q2 because the others were a little bit too far out in front."

15. Nico Hulkenberg - Five-place penalty (gearbox)

"The build-up to qualifying was quite intense because the guys were working hard to repair my car after the accident this morning. It was not a big impact, but the angle was unfortunate and there was quite a lot to fix - so all credit to the boys who got me out with enough time to set a time in Q1. The car felt good straight away and we made it through to Q3, which was always the target. We then took a strategic decision to save tyres so I didn't set a time."

16. Jean-Eric Vergne - Three-place penalty (blocking)

"I'm not so happy with today's qualifying as we have struggled to find the right balance on our car all weekend. For qualifying, maybe we went too far the other way in terms of set-up and when the balance is not right, you lose a lot of time in the high speed corners. But hopefully the race will be better tomorrow; it usually is."

17. Bruno Senna

"It was a frustrating qualifying session as I was held up on my final timed lap at the end of Q1 and couldn't post the time that I wanted. However, it's a long race tomorrow and although this track is difficult to overtake at, we've been in this position before and so we'll give it our best shot to score some points in the race."

18. Heikki Kovalainen

"For me I'm pleased with what I got out of the car today. On my second run I was following Hulkenberg on the out lap and wasn't quite able to get my tyre temperatures up to the optimum level so in the first sector on the quick lap I had a little bit of understeer, but the other two sectors were about as good as they could have been."

19. Timo Glock

"All well that ends well, but FP3 was a difficult start to the day, a bit like Singapore. Here, we had an oil pressure problem with the engine and I couldn't run very much, which was a bit of a shame as we needed to do some fine-tuning due to the track temperature change; our car was quite sensitive to it.

20. Pedro de la Rosa

"Today I went out to give it my all and I'm happy with how it went. The team did a fantastic job and the car's set-up improved notably. In qualifying I did two good laps; the second one was even better, almost perfect, and tomorrow we will start ahead of a Caterham and a Marussia which is already a success. More so at a circuit like this one. We've got to be more than happy with what we've done."

21. Charles Pic

"I am reasonably happy with my qualifying lap, and to have achieved our objective of getting ahead of one of the Caterhams. Having said that I think there is more to come from the car still and extracting that will continue to be a big focus this afternoon and evening. At the moment it feels that we are a little less competitive than at Singapore, so we will use the time before the race to see what we can to do make some more progress tomorrow."

22. Vitaly Petrov

"In FP3 we found that the car wasn't working as well as it had yesterday in FP2 when it had felt pretty good. When we went through the data we found that the tyre temperatures weren't coming up as well as we'd have liked and we made a couple of changes for qualifying that immediately improved the setup. On my first run the car felt much better and on my second run I was at least 0.7s up on my previous quickest lap, but I made a mistake in Turn 14 and that cost me a lot of time. Despite that I'm not disappointed with where I finished."

23. Michael Schumacher - 10-place penalty (causing an accident in Singapore)

"It was a shame that we couldn't do more today, after things hadn't looked too bad this morning, but we simply didn't get the performance together. Although we should also say that, knowing the high-speed characteristics of this circuit, we didn't necessarily expect to look in great shape here. Perhaps I could have made it through to Q3, because the data showed that I lost two-tenths in turn 11 because of traffic, but I wasn't quite sure what Hamilton was doing ahead of me."

24. Narain Karthikeyan

"In the morning the car was working very well and my first laps were fantastic but then I spun off and damaged my new floor so we had to go back to the old one. In qualifying I barely had any grip and on my last lap I went long at 130R. It wasn't a good qualifying session for me, but the car is performing much better."

Starting grid:

Pos  Driver                Car
 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      
 2.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault
 3.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari
 4.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault
 5.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari
 6.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari 
 7.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault
 8.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes 
 9.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes              
10.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari
11.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 
12.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault     
13.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes
14.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari
15.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes
16.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault
17.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault
18.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth
19.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari
20.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth
21.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth
22.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault
23.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes         
24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth

THE RACE

When Sebastian Vettel receives his plane tickets for Japan these days, he must instantly break into a smile.

The Japanese Grand Prix is fast becoming as synonymous with a Vettel success as Monaco was with Ayrton Senna's domination, or the days when Spa was regarded as a Michael Schumacher stronghold.

In four visits to Suzuka - like Monte Carlo and Spa, a track you would be proud to become a master of - Vettel now has four poles and three victories. And the only time he was defeated in the race, he picked up the 2011 world championship crown as consolation.

His 2012 Suzuka win looks like being his most significant yet in Japan.

In 2009, it was too late: Jenson Button was already 16 points clear (in 'old scoring') with two rounds to go. And though his 2010 victory revitalised his title hopes, it didn't, at the time, seem like the start of unstoppable momentum.

2012 has a different air. Those 25 points effectively more than doubled in value when Fernando Alonso retired at the first corner, allowing Vettel to reduce a 29-point deficit to just four.

Even though the Ferrari is now good enough to fight for a podium at every race (and had Red Bull covered just two rounds ago in Italy), four points is far too paltry a cushion for comfort with five grands prix to go. And with Vettel having just delivered back-to-back wins.

From the moment he unleashed his true pace in Saturday morning practice, Vettel looked unstoppable in Japan. Pole was not difficult to achieve, and the race was led from start to finish, with a margin of up to 20 seconds at times -d huge by modern standards.

Vettel even had time to revisit his habitual jape of unnerving Red Bull by pushing flat-out to set fastest lap while already miles clear. He achieved the benchmark time too, with pitwall nerves ruffled but his RB8 still spotless.

Alonso remained fairly sanguine about what could have been a mortal blow to his championship bid. His start wasn't fantastic and Button and Kimi Raikkonen went either side of him. Although Alonso certainly didn't make any dramatic moves, neither did he leave sufficient space for the faster-moving Lotus on the outside. They banged wheels twice, and that did enough damage to send Alonso spinning into retirement.

The Ferrari's exit generated a huge dust cloud and ended with the car parked on the circuit. Surprisingly, that didn't cause further carnage. But Romain Grosjean did.

Mark Webber had lost second place to Kamui Kobayashi off the line, and then lost a lot more when Grosjean slid into him at the second corner and sent his Red Bull sideways in front of the pack.

Grosjean sustained a broken wing, was given a 10s stop/go penalty, and then retired when his last set of tyres faded because the team felt putting a new set on for a point-less finish would be futile. But that was probably all more enjoyable than receiving a visit from the furious Webber later on.

The Australian eventually managed to reverse back on track and get a new wing, but could not catch the safety car train before the restart. Still he came through to ninth, thanks in part to making just one more pitstop. Second place looked like his for the taking though, and he had no qualms about sharing his views on "nutcase" Grosjean after the race.

In fairness to the Lotus driver, his crime was not a heinous one - simply a misjudgement off-line amid a lead pack concertina. But given that Grosjean's desk in the Lotus motorhome must be plastered with team memos along the lines of 'remember not to hit anyone on lap one', he was the last person who could afford an early incident.

With Alonso and Webber out, two big threats to Kobayashi's podium chances were gone. His F1 career so far had largely been a mix of surging forward from unlikely positions, and tumbling backwards from good ones. But unlike the squandered Spa front row, Kobayashi was not going to let this one slip. Not with a passionate home crowd desperate to see him on the rostrum. And, he reckoned, so strong was Sauber's race pace that as long as he didn't stumble into any first-lap calamity, the podium would be in the bag.

Keeping up with Vettel was unsurprisingly impossible. Instead Kobayashi's focus was on his mirrors, which were full of Button and Felipe Massa, both of whom had gained a lot from the first lap mess.

Button tried to wrong-foot Sauber with a lap 13 first pitstop. Kobayashi covered him off by coming in next time around. But that dropped them both into traffic, and staying out until lap 17 allowed Massa to jump from fourth to second.

That was where he stayed, claiming his first podium finish since the 2010 Korean GP. Massa suggested it was a sign of what he could achieve next year if Ferrari showed the foresight to keep him. Ferrari might have wondered why he hadn't delivered those achievements at more regular intervals than biennially.

With Massa edging away, Kobayashi looked vulnerable to Button. But as the Sauber driver kept his tyres in better shape in stint three than stint two, he was able to resist the McLaren and finally claim his first F1 podium finish. Kobayashi, Sauber, and the home crowd were all euphoric in their delight, while a rueful Button admitted that McLaren's pace was equal to Sauber's, and not a match for Red Bull or Ferrari.

His team-mate Lewis Hamilton was fifth after a lively race including some amusing cameos with his McLaren replacement Sergio Perez. The Mexican dropped behind Hamilton when an early bid to pass Raikkonen around the outside of the first corner left him kicking up run-off area dust.

Perez felt he would have plenty of time to stare at McLarens in the Technology Centre next year so was keen to get on with passing Hamilton - which he did with an excellent tyre-smoking dive into the hairpin on lap six.

But Hamilton got back in front at the first pitstops, and when Perez tried to attack the McLaren at the hairpin again - this time down the outside - he succeeded only in spinning into a gravel-trapped retirement.

Early on, Hamilton had been as unimpressed with his car's handling as he had been in qualifying, but the understeer cleared (amid a "thud", reckoned Hamilton) and the McLaren came alive in the second half of the race.

That allowed him to attack Raikkonen for fifth and get ahead in the final stops. He emerged alongside the already-pitted Lotus then assertively held his ground on the inside through the first corners despite Raikkonen having far greater momentum, and the racing line.

Raikkonen then resisted Nico Hulkenberg and Pastor Maldonado for sixth, with Webber close behind. For those still-unsorted teams pondering which Force India driver to pounce on for 2013, Hulkenberg's drive from 15th on the grid was a strong one, and overshadowed Paul di Resta's clutch-damage restrained 12th, as a slow start and handling problems also stymied the Scot.

Maldonado, meanwhile, could celebrate a third consecutive shunt-free race and his first points finish since winning in Spain.

The final point went to Daniel Ricciardo, who was delighted to secure it by fending off Michael Schumacher. As the Australian noted, there won't be many more chances to claim your 'I out-jousted a seven-time champion' badge with Schumacher returning to his sofa in two months.

Jean-Eric Vergne was 13th in the second Toro Rosso, delivering the race's most ironic moment by beating Senna over the line by just a tenth a day after their qualifying spat.

Two weeks after Marussia had grabbed a potentially game-changing 12th place in Singapore, Caterham appeared to have a shot at snatching tail-end honours back when Heikki Kovalainen emerged from lap one in 11th and then fended off Vergne and Schumacher for a long while.

But in the end as soon as the recovering top cars and upper midfielders had clear air they were able to demote the Caterham, which ended up 16th - just eight seconds ahead of Timo Glock's Marussia.

The German reckons his squad's only deficit to Caterham now is its lack of KERS. The not-so-new-anymore teams may not be anywhere near the points, but at least their own battle is spicing up at last.

Results - 53 laps

Pos  Driver        Team                       Time
 1.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           1h28:56.242
 2.  Massa         Ferrari                    +    20.639
 3.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +    24.538
 4.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           +    25.098
 5.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes           +    46.490
 6.  Raikkonen     Lotus-Renault              +    50.424
 7.  Hulkenberg    Force India-Mercedes       +    51.159
 8.  Maldonado     Williams-Renault           +    52.364
 9.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           +    54.675
10.  Ricciardo     Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +  1:06.919
11.  Schumacher    Mercedes                   +  1:07.769
12.  Di Resta      Force India-Mercedes       +  1:23.460
13.  Vergne        Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +  1:28.645
14.  Senna         Williams-Renault           +  1:28.709
15.  Kovalainen    Caterham-Renault           +     1 lap
16.  Glock         Marussia-Cosworth          +     1 lap
17.  Petrov        Caterham-Renault           +     1 lap
18.  De la Rosa    HRT-Cosworth               +     1 lap
19.  Grosjean      Lotus-Renault              +    2 laps

Retirements:

Driver        Team                         On lap
Pic           Marussia-Cosworth            39
Karthikeyan   HRT-Cosworth                 34
Perez         Sauber-Ferrari               19
Alonso        Ferrari                      1
Rosberg       Mercedes                     1


World Championship standings, round 15:                

Drivers:                    Constructors:             
 1.  Alonso       194        1.  Red Bull-Renault          324
 2.  Vettel       190        2.  McLaren-Mercedes          283
 3.  Raikkonen    157        3.  Ferrari                   263
 4.  Hamilton     152        4.  Lotus-Renault             239
 5.  Webber       134        5.  Mercedes                  136
 6.  Button       131        6.  Sauber-Ferrari            116
 7.  Rosberg       93        7.  Force India-Mercedes       81
 8.  Grosjean      82        8.  Williams-Renault           58
 9.  Massa         69        9.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari         15
10.  Perez         66       
11.  Kobayashi     50       
12.  Di Resta      44       
13.  Schumacher    43       
14.  Hulkenberg    37       
15.  Maldonado     33       
16.  Senna         25       
17.  Vergne         8       
18.  Ricciardo      7       
       

TEAM BY TEAM

Red Bull

Small refinements to Adrian Newey's design were effective in making the Red Bull the car to beat in Japan. It now looks ominous for the other teams as the RB8 comes into its own and Sebastian Vettel looked imperious once again, at least once he had dodged a penalty for impeding arch-rival Fernando Alonso during qualifying.

This was Sebastian Vettel's weekend from start to finish. The young German driver led from lights to flag to take him to within four points of leader Fernando Alonso. Vettel was unbeatable during qualifying, error-free during the race and even had the confidence to blitz one of his trademark late-race fastest laps before taking the chequered flag.

What seemed to be an almost certain podium turned into two points for Mark Webber. He was easily fast enough to qualify beside Vettel but was passed by Kamui Kobayashi on the run up to Turn 1 before getting tagged by Romain Grosjean. From then on it was all about recovery for the Aussie.

McLaren

The news that Lewis Hamilton is moving away from the team that nurtured him was tempered on Friday by smiling faces and an upbeat demeanour from the young Englishman. Come the end of the weekend the opposite was true.

Jenson Button incurred a gearbox penalty after qualifying third fastest behind the Red Bulls and started just in front of his team-mate in eighth position. However, his race pace was not quite as good and despite a late race charge he was unable to usurp Kamui Kobayashi for the final podium position.

Hamilton, meanwhile, found himself battling with McLaren's man for 2013, Sergio Perez, and was mugged into the hairpin by his younger peer. However, it was Perez who blinked first a few laps later and Hamilton went on to finish in fifth position.

Ferrari

It is now or never for the Maranello squad. Ferrari has shut its windtunnel for tests and with Alonso's lead slashed again, now to four points from Vettel, the development race seems to have got away from Ferrari, despite Felipe Massa's second place.

Massa cruised through to second place from 10th position on the grid, and his pace merited the result. However, Ferrari will be disappointed that the one driver he didn't take points off was Alonso's main rival. However, Massa showed some of his old self and will hope that this race will add to his argument for a 2013 contract.

Despite dragging the Ferrari to sixth position on Saturday, Alonso clashed wheels with Kimi Raikkonen on the run down to the first corner, sending the Ferrari driver into a spin and out of the race. Alonso's early exit from the circuit tells its own story.

Mercedes

Upon this weekend's showing, new-signing Lewis Hamilton will be worried about the pace of the Mercedes. Suzuka did not suit the Silver Arrow but it seems like a long time since any circuit has suited the Mercedes' unique blend of talents. The over-riding conclusion must be that the Mercedes is simply not fast enough.

After his incident with Jean-Eric Vergne in Singapore it was always going to be an uphill battle for Michael Schumacher, and so it proved. He outqualified his younger team-mate but was dropped beneath him to 23rd once the penalty had been added. In the last four races where Schumacher has started outside the top 20 he has scored points, but he missed out by one position today, and by only a second.

Rosberg's race was somewhat shorter. He was caught up in the first corner melee and retired forthwith. Points were on the cards if he had a clean race, but only in the lower echelons and with the help of retirements.

Lotus

The long expected win has not happened for Lotus and this is another weekend when it failed to materialise. The difference this time is that the Lotus never even looked like challenging, and Kimi Raikkonen isn't exactly overjoyed with the situation.

Romain Grosjean was once again the talk of the paddock for all the wrong reasons after incurring a 10-second stop-go penalty for hitting Mark Webber in the run down to the first corner. That dropped him to the back of the field and he was eventually retired on lap 51. The call for more sanctions rang through the paddock from both drivers and commentators.

Raikkonen was outqualified by his team-mate again but stayed mostly out of trouble to take sixth, just ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, and maybe that is an indication that the Lotus is on the pace of the Force India at this stage of the season.

Force India

Force India's drivers have been touted in recent weeks for a move into a larger team and it is Nico Hulkenberg who took the points home for Vijay Mallya's squad in Japan with another solid performance from driver and team.

Hulkenberg only qualified in 15th position after a penalty but ended the race in seventh position to strengthen his claims for a top drive after Paul di Resta's strong performance in Singapore.

Meanwhile, it was less straightforward for the Scot. He started in 11th and had a problem before he even took to the grid - with the clutch. Di Resta will have hoped for more after Singapore, and on the basis that he started in front of his team-mate he would have hoped to finish ahead of him. However, it was not to be and it remains hard to choose between the two Force India drivers.

Sauber

We are getting used to seeing Sauber drivers standing on the podium, but this time it was Kamui Kobayashi who took the honour. Sauber will now be eying Mercedes' fifth position in the constructors' table hungrily, and it would have been even close had Sergio Perez not spun into the gravel while battling with Lewis Hamilton.

Kobayashi followed up his qualifying performance with a solid race and the crowd went wild as he became the third Japanese driver to stand on the podium. Kobayashi said he knew that his long-run pace was good after Friday and he showed it as he held of Jenson Button in the closing stages.

Meanwhile, Perez had a more mixed afternoon. He failed to back out of the throttle, which would have been judicious, on the first lap and ran out on the outside of the first corner and then proceeded to spin out. However, Martin Whitmarsh will have been pleased to see him show his fighting spirit as he dived down the inside of Lewis Hamilton shortly before his spin.

Toro Rosso

This year has been far from a classic for Toro Rosso and picking up the odd point is all it can really hope for at the moment.

Once again, Daniel Ricciardo outqualified Jean-Eric Vergne and in the race he finished three places further up to secure tenth position.

Vergne was penalised for blocking in qualifying and will need to improve if he is to build upon his first year in F1 after finishing in 13th position.

Williams

A solid weekend for Pastor Maldonado. However, Williams will look at the points table and rue missed opportunities at the end of the year. Sitting in eighth position in the standings and now not looking to have the pace that it enjoyed in places like Valencia it once again dropped points to Force India and it looks like an uphill battle to steal seventh in the constructors' table.

Amid speculation that his seat may not be entirely safe despite the huge amount of sponsorship that he brings, Maldonado needed to show that he can score points consistently too. He outqualified his team-mate again and stayed out of trouble this time.

Meanwhile, Bruno Senna will be increasingly aware of the silhouette of Valtteri Bottas in the garage. He qualified poorly, clashed with Nico Rosberg and didn't score any points.

Caterham

The promise of increased performance and a break into the midfield seems a long way off for Caterham as it struggles to stay ahead of Marussia. The team will be concerned by Marussia's smash and grab in Singapore, which has pushed it down to 11th in the constructors' championship with only have five races now to recover.

Heikki Kovalainen is clearly the number one at Caterham and once again he overshadowed Vitaly Petrov, who qualified behind both Marussia's and finished behind Timo Glock in the race.

HRT

The HRTs were anonymous at best in Japan, but at least Pedro de la Rosa outqualified a Caterham and a Marussia.

De la Rosa finished in 19th a lap down and Narain Karthikeyan was forced to retire due to safety reasons, although after qualifying in last place yet again - nearly 1.5 seconds off his team-mate - it feels like scant loss.

Marussia

Marussia seems to have some momentum at the moment, although it is difficult to ignore that it is the third of the 'new' teams not to have made inroads into the midfield. However, sitting in 10th position the team must be much happier than it was. It is now 'nip and tuck' between itself and Caterham for pace.

Charles Pic retired early on but Timo Glock forged through to 16th position at the flag, which was perhaps all that he could hope for with the speed of his car.

RACE DATA

The Race in Action

Full race lap times (H)

Full race lap times (V)

Lap chart (positions)

Lap chart (gaps)