Well slap me and call me Suzy.
Vettel pledged before the race that he'd make it to the podium, but I'd have bet a month's beer money against it.
Vettel had a whole lotta luck last season, and he had a heapin' helpin' of it yesterday, too, mostly courtesy of the safety car. First he starts from pit lane. Then he punts Bruno Senna's car and dings his front wing. Then he barely avoids rear ending Ricciardo but collects a styrofoam DRS sign as a consolation prize, dinging the same front wing in the process. Then he gets penalized (slightly) for a four-off while trying to overtake Romain BigPants. Yet he still manages to make up 30 positions, all told, but with only two contested overtakes on the track.
Alonso scored some luck too, though, because if Vettel hadn't spent so much time screwing around, he probably would have given Alonso some serious competition for second spot.
I think there's something fishy about Vettel's Q3 fuel snafu. Horner claimed post-race that there was more than enough fuel in the car, they just couldn't get to one critical sump without removing any body panels, which is what the SR requires. He hinted it was a quirk with the Rinnow fuel system, and he half hinted this came as a surprise to them. But Ferrari thinks the RB8s have some kind of fuel transfer system so they can adjust weight balance (which probably chaps Pirelli's azz, but makes ANewey smile inscrutably), and that that system violates parc ferme. So one possibility is that Vettel was caught unawares by the order to shut the car off immediately and forgot to complete his fuel management check list.
With two races remaining, if RBR scores four more points, they win the WCC. And if Vettel wins either remaining race, he also wins the WDC. The funny thing is, after Abu Dhabi, SkyBet
reduced the odds on him winning the WDC by 4%, from 1:6 to 2:9.
SkyBet also has Vettel the 11/8 fave to win the inaugural USGP at Austin (
Keep Austin weird!).
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