Button Wins At Suzuka, Vettel Becomes Youngest Double F1 Champion

Although he wanted to win, he had to settle for the third place after today’s Suzuka race, a third place which was enough for Sebastian Vettel to win his second consecutive championship tile, while Button won a very exciting race. Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso tried very hard to overtake Button in the last laps of the race but in the end he grabbed the second place.

Sebastian Vettel has now joined a very exclusive club as he is only the ninth driver in the F1 history to win successive titles. The other drivers that managed to do this are Fernando Alonso, Mika Hakkinen, Michael Schumacher (five titles in a row), Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Jack Brabham, Juan Manuel Fangio and Alberto Ascari.

The former youngest driver to win two titles was Alonso who won his championships with Renault back in 2005 and 2006. At 24 years and 99 days, Vettel has managed to break that record, being about one year younger than the Spaniard.

There are 100 points left in the championship to win but Vettel has a 114 points lead over Button so nothing can happen as far as the first place is concerned in Korea next weekend and after that in India, Abu Dhabi and Brazil. The constructors’ title is still up for grabs but Red Bull has a huge lead over McLaren Mercedes and chances are slim that RBR could lose it.

The start of the race was pretty interesting as there was a fierce battle between Vettel and Button and although the German managed to stay in front, Sebastian lost the first place of the race on lap 19 when he decided to go and change tires. Jenson Button staid for one extra lap and he managed to win a few precious seconds that allowed him to get in front of Vettel.

Hamilton and Massa had an incident once again and the Brazilian lost the right front-wing endplate of his Ferrari. Needless to say, the race’s stewards announced an investigation of this incident, which was the fourth of the year, but no measures were taken. Hamilton eventually finished behind Webber and in front of Michael Schumacher and Massa.

Here are the full results of the 2011 Japanese Grand Prix held at Suzuka:

1. Jenson Button Britain McLaren-Mercedes 53 laps 1hr 30m 53.427s
2. Fernando Alonso Spain Ferrari-Ferrari +00m 01.1s
3. Sebastian Vettel Germany Red Bull-Renault +00m 02.0s
4. Mark Webber Australia Red Bull-Renault +00m 08.0s
5. Lewis Hamilton Britain McLaren-Mercedes +00m 24.2s
6. Michael Schumacher Germany Mercedes-Mercedes +00m 27.1s
7. Felipe Massa Brazil Ferrari-Ferrari +00m 28.2s
8. Sergio Perez Mexico Sauber-Ferrari +00m 39.3s
9. Adrian Sutil Germany Force India-Mercedes +00m 42.6s
10. Kamui Kobayashi Japan Sauber-Ferrari +00m 44.3s

11. Nico Rosberg Germany Mercedes-Mercedes +00m 54.4s
12. Paul di Resta Britain Force India-Mercedes +00m 62.3s
13. Vitaly Petrov Russia Renault-Renault +00m 63.7s
14. Jaime Alguersuari Spain Toro Rosso-Ferrari +00m 64.1s
15. Rubens Barrichello Brazil Williams-Cosworth +01m 06.6s
16. Bruno Senna Brazil Renault-Renault +01m 12.6s
17. Pastor Maldonado Venezuela Williams-Cosworth +01m 14.1s
18. Heikki Kovalainen Finland Lotus-Renault +01m 27.8s
19. Jarno Trulli Italy Lotus-Renault +01m 36.1s
20. Timo Glock Germany Virgin-Cosworth +2 laps
21. Jerome d’Ambrosio Belgium Virgin-Cosworth +2 laps
22. Daniel Ricciardo Australia HRT-Cosworth +2 laps
23. Vitantonio Liuzzi Italy HRT-Cosworth +3 laps

Rtd Sebastien Buemi Switzerland Toro Rosso-Ferrari 9 laps completed

Here’s the situation in the drivers’ standings before the last four races of the season:

The title for the constructors’ championship is pretty much settled as Red Bull has a lead of 130 points:

Post tags: Tags: f1 world champion, formula-1, japan gp, sebastian vettel, suzuka