Singapore GP champ Vettel expects season to go down to the wire just like 2010, when he pipped current championship leader Alonso to the title on the final day
Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel said this year’s unpredictable Formula One title race could be shaping up to be a repeat of 2010, when he memorably sealed victory on the last day of the season.
The defending world champion leapt to second in the standings behind Fernando Alonso with victory in Sunday’s dramatic Singapore Grand Prix, which was only his second win of the season.
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Bullish:u00a0Red Bull ace Sebastian Vettel. Pic/Getty Images
Last year, Vettel cruised to his second successive title with 11 victories. But he said the “incredible” current season, with seven different winners in 14 races, may be headed for a cliff-hanger.
“I don’t think Fernando would be too happy if it happened again in the last race,” said the 25-year-old. “But it’s an incredible season for all of us.
“We have a lot of races left, the car seems to be competitive and we just have to use the momentum and keep pushing for these last races and see what happens.”
In 2010, Alonso led the series and Vettel lay third going into the final race in Abu Dhabi, with four drivers capable of clinching it on the last day. But the German, then 23, drove peerlessly to become Formula One’s youngest champion.
Vettel showed similar steel in Sunday’s race when he weathered a welter of incidents on Singapore’s tight street circuit — including a dramatic crash involving Michael Schumacher, and two safety cars — to clinch victory.
He is now breathing down Alonso’s neck with 165 points, 29 points off the leader. Kimi Raikkonen is on 149 and Lewis Hamilton, the early leader in Singapore before he was forced to retire, has 142.
“It’s a tough championship so far but we’re still in it.
“We’re still looking forward to the next couple of races, and obviously the target at the moment is to beat Fernando,” said Vettel.u00a0
It was my best day in F1, says Di Resta
Paul Di Resta hailed his “best day in Formula One so far” following a career-high fourth place in the Singapore Grand Prix. Starting from sixth on the grid, Di Resta was aided by retirements to the front-row duo in McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Pastor Maldonado in his Williams. But over the course of the full two-hour race Di Resta did not put a wheel out of place around the Marina Bay Street Circuit. Di Resta said: “This is a fantastic result for me personally. We’ve done it on merit over the whole weekend.”
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