SEBASTIAN VETTEL TAKES HIS PLACE AMONG FORMULA ONE'S LEGENDS

Darkness fell on Buddh International Circuit, hours after the teams & their drivers had departed, the words of Sebastian Vettel hung in the air...just as much as his astonishing achievement. What he has done in his noisy machine is already the stuff of legend. His 10th win of the season & his 6th in succession had delivered his 4th world championship with 3 grand prix still remaining. Sebastian joins only 3 other drivers as quadruple winners but at 26, he is significantly younger than Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost, & Juan Manuel Fangio. Only Vettel, Schumacher & Fangio have won 4  in successive seasons. The last time he failed to win the world title was in 2009, the year Barack Obama was elected president of the United States & Matt Smith became the new Doctor Who, when Michael Jackson died & Susan Boyle arrived.
Down the length of the paddock less successful drivers were being asked what they thought about the genius in their midst, even being implored to defy their boredom. Yet it was what Vettel said that was most impressive. He had already displayed a rare emotion, performing doughnuts in his winning Red Bull, rather than proceeding to parc fermé, & bowing as if in supplication before the car. He would be reprimanded for this before the day was out, for  Formula One's attitudes do not allow for such excesses.

Pulling at his cap & pulling at small sized bottle of champagne he was holding, he spoke with a keen intelligence. It is this which separates him from his rivals as much as his driving. Maybe, Nico Rosberg, who was second to him in Sunday's Indian Grand Prix, is the closest to him here too. And Vettel was determined not to have a bad time. He talked about his childhood & his love for his family, about his desire to explore India & about the Red Bull team who had helped him to achieve so much. Ultimately, though, the discussion returned to Vettel himself & how he now rates himself against the best drivers there have ever been. Only the mixed strategies & the possibility of heavy traffic was expected to trouble pole-sitter Vettel in India. The champion-elect was always going to pit earlier than the four drivers in the top 10, including his team-mate, Mark Webber, who had chosen the harder, medium level. Vettel confounded everyone by pitting early, at the end of the second lap, & then carving his way through the traffic with some imperious driving. He did not lead every lap, which he had done in the previous two races at the Buddh circuit, but, cutting through the field from almost the back, he was 17th after his early pit stop & he was more dominant than ever. Webber, who had collided with the Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen & Fernando Alonso's Ferrari in the opening laps, dropped out of the contest two-thirds of the way through, with alternator trouble. At that stage, & even from the very beginning, there was going to be only one winner.