Vettel ‘controls’ Spa, Alonso back in the hunt

F1 News

Date: 25/August/2013

F1 Champion Sebastian Vettel drove into the distance at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, winning his fifth race of the season by almost 17 seconds.

The Red Bull star got the better of Mercedes pole sitter Lewis Hamilton after just a few corners and was untouchable thereafter.

Vettel said: “It was fantastic race for us - from start to finish really very good tactics. Obviously it helped on the first lap to have the tow off Lewis through Eau Rouge and then I was flying.

“Once I passed him we had incredible pace and really could control the race until the end.”

Another driver with a memorable first lap was Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, who surged from ninth to fifth. The Spaniard continued his rise, culminating in clinching second place from Hamilton during the first pit stop.

Although Vettel was out of sight, Alonso in turn pulled ten seconds clear of Hamilton and regained second place in the World Championship standings.

Vettel is 46 points ahead, with eight rounds remaining, but Alonso feels he and Ferrari are back in the fight.

Alonso said: “Today we recovered some of the optimism that we lost and I think it was a good weekend for the championship in terms of feeling and in terms of points as well.

“We cannot forget that in the first five races we were a very competitive team. We won two races and were in a position to fight for the podium every time.

“Then there were some races where we went backwards and lost direction a little bit. We analysed everything and all the things we are now bringing to the races are delivering what we expected, finally.

“The championship is very long. If you have a competitive car and you win four or five consecutive races like Sebastian did last year you recover very quickly.

“Last year  I was leading with 41 points ahead of Sebastian after Monza and I arrived in Texas 15 points behind. Our hopes are to keep developing, to keep improving performance and try to repeat what happened last year the other way around.”

Hamilton’s fifth podium of the season moves him up to third in the Championship, at the expense of Kimi Raikkonen, who suffered his first non-finish since returning to F1 at the start of last season. Raikkonen was side-lined by brake problems with his Lotus.