Lotus Racing F1 Team Race Report: Japanese GP

F1 flies to the holy land of motorsport, where drama started early. Saturday's qualifying was postponed 10 a.m morning the next day before the official race due to heavy rain. Red Bull Racing once again proved their dominance on high-downforce tracks when their drivers Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber swept the front row in 1st and 2nd respectively. Sunday 10th October saw more actions when Virgin Racing's Lucas di Grassi crashed his car at the famous 130R corner on the formation lap but walked away without injuries. Renault F1 Team's Vitaly Petrov tangled with William's Nico Hulkenberg on the main straight once the lights went off, resulting the Russian rookie to spin and hit the Armco barriers hard and ending his race as well as Hulkenberg's. A little further up ahead, Felipe Massa drove into the side of Force India's Vitantonio Liuzzi, also forcing the retirement for the both of them. This series of accidents brought out the Safety Car for six laps, during which Petrov's quick starting team-mate Robert Kubica, who splitted the Red Bull duo in 2nd place right from the start, retired with his rear right wheel missing. Later once the Safety Car came back into the pits and the race resumes, Vettel and Webber sped up and built a decent gap between them and the cars behind. McLaren Mercedes's defending champion Jenson Button, who started from 6th with the more durable harder tyres while the rest of the field ran the softer slicks and drove up to 4th on start-up, was very quick and also managed to grab the lead when Vettel and Webber pitted. When Button struggled with his now degrading rubbers which is causing the car to skid at the exit of corners and had to pit for fresh ones, the trio behind him, Vettel, Webber and Scuderia Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, winner of the last 2 races zoomed past and once again Vettel takes the lead. From there on Vettel led Webber for the team's 3rd one-two finish of the season with Alonso in 3rd. Button's team-mate and 2008 champion Lewis Hamilton, who at one point was ahead of his senior racer had to slow down due to a gearbox problem and let his fellow countryman pass him at the Hairpin turn. Button finished in 4th and Hamilton in 5th. In the midfield, Mercedes Petronas GP's former seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher and Sauber Ferrari's Kamui Kobayashi were the heroes of the day. Schumacher, who started in 10th was racing the best race of his season which saw him chasing down his team-mate Nico Rosberg and finishing 6th after Rosberg gifted him the position by crashing at the Esseesse corners. Kobayashi meanwhile jumped from 14th to 7th with some awesome and daring overtaking maneuvres ever, taking down Scuderia Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari, Liuzzi's team-mate Adrian Sutil, Hulkenberg's team-mate and F1's senior driver Rubens Barrichello and also team-mate Nick Heidfeld all at the Hairpin corner. Further down the grid, Lotus Racing F1 Team achieved their best result so far with a 13th place courtesy of Heikki Kovalainen and 14th from Jarno Trulli after starting the race from 20th and 19th respectively.