Now waiting on the inevitable penalties, as Vergne is surely facing one and there may be one or two after the Kimi incident in the closing stages of quali.
This doesn't include the penalty Schumacher has, dropping him to 23rd.
In car listening to Radio Five Live - sadly the commentator is Johnathan Legard!!!! Awful Awful Awful.
You don't have to suffer the Wallonian commentators rabbitting on like teenage girls with a severe case of verbal diarrhoea or suffer the Flemish commentators on VT4. You're lucky.
It is now statistically possible for Vettel, Raikkonen or Hamilton to win the championship if Alonso fails to score more points. Favourite must be SV (or FA).
The Circuit of the Americas (Cota) has been given the green light to stage this year's United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, in November. The 5.5km (3.4-mile) track and the pit and paddock buildings were described as "fantastic" as FIA race director Charlie Whiting awarded Cota "Grade One" status, allowing it to stage grands prix.
Alonso's first lap retirement from the race sure changes the complexion of the championship hunt. I had envisioned Alonso continuing to score at least several points per race through the remainder of the season thus requiring Vettel to win these races in order to close the points gap. But following the Japanese GP Vettel's points deficit behind Alonso has now shrunk to just 4 points. It's a whole new season for these two drivers now that a change in fortunes has all but erased Alonso's lead. Weber and Kimi may feel some new hope too. It will be exciting to see what happens next.
Even though I've never been a big Kobayashi admirer in the past, I was very impressed by his Suzuka drive. Talk about stepping up your game when it counts! The Japanese F1 fans enjoyed a very rare and special treat in seeing their countryman stand on the podium at his home venue. And like Massa, some amount of benefit with regard to his future employment prospects may have been achieved by finishing so well. Time will tell on that score but it was an impressive accomplishment for both drivers and their respective teams.
Grosjean involved in another first turn melee? Really? Though this time it seemed the contact recipient Weber may have checked up more quickly than was reasonably predictable. Looking at the in-car video, I'm not sure how much the Frenchman got it wrong this time. In any case he was assessed and served a penalty over the incident regardless! Maybe a case of past actions influencing how the incident was judged by the stewards? In any event said stewards have appeared to be rather busy with the issuance of penalties lately.
It may indeed come down to the final race of the season.
I initially thought it was 25, and I originally did the math on that basis (and it stretched down to Massa) but then I found a reference to 10 points per win, so I amended my comment accordingly).
And yes, if Massa won every race and Alonso failed to score, Massa would win as he would have more wins than Alonso, even though he would tie on points.
I was impressed with Kobayashi's result (and even more so with his greatly-improved standard of English).
Did Alonso merely have a left-rear puncture? There seemed to be no further contact with another car or any scenery after his 'slide'. Couldn't he have crawled back to the pits?
