‘Heroic’ Hamilton concedes race for title as Vettel leads the chase

Sebastian Vettel moved a step closer to his third world title with victory in Korea as Lewis Hamilton saw his challenge extinguished in Yeongam.

The McLaren driver entered the race 42 points off the top of the drivers’ championship and needing to make up some ground to keep himself in the hunt.

But the race proved a nightmare for the 27-year-old as he finished 10th and fell 62 points behind new championship leader Vettel, who overtook Fernando Alonso with his fourth win of the year.

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A rear anti-roll bar failure during his first stint ultimately proved to be Hamilton’s undoing.

The problem meant an extra pit stop for fresh rubber with the resulting handling problems causing high levels of tyre degradation as he dropped back from an initial fourth place.

The problem was exacerbated when a loose piece of Astroturf became attached to his car during the closing laps, and he ended up just holding off Sergio Perez, his McLaren replacement for 2013, for the final point.

And Hamilton admits his chances of departing McLaren for Mercedes as a world champion are finished.

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He said: “I think in terms of winning I think that is it for us, but I think we can still get a lot of points.

“We are 62 points behind now so it is going to be tough.

“I don’t see us in the fight. It’s out of the question for us probably now, it’s a shame as we were right there for a moment but this is motor racing. It’s a sad day, but we will live.

“I feel a little bit exhausted. It was a tough race, I tried my best, we had another problem at the back of the car, I don’t know how.

“But the team said it was safe to drive and I kept pushing as much as I could but the balance was changing from corner to corner. The car was moving all the time, even on the straight.”

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He also took a slight dig at McLaren, by saying: “It’s a day to forget, this has been a year to forget as well so I am looking forward to a fresh start next year.”

It was a day to forget generally for McLaren, after they lost Hamilton’s team-mate Jenson Button on the first lap.

The British driver – along with Nico Rosberg – was clouted by the wayward Sauber of Suzuka hero Kamui Kobayashi at turn three and went no further – the Japanese driver serving a drive-through penalty before being forced to park up in the garage.

There were few problems for Vettel, however, as the German took his third win in a row – and the 25th of his career – to open a six-point lead over Alonso.

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Vettel now tops the standings for the first time since May, and given the pace of Red Bull here and in Japan last weekend, he is the clear favourite to emerge as champion.

The key to the German’s victory was his start, as he got away well from the dirty side of the grid to overtake pole-sitting team-mate Mark Webber into turn one and secure a lead he was never to relinquish.

There were concerns over the wear rate of his right-front tyre during the closing stages, but he ultimately cruised to the win ahead of Webber as Red Bull took the first one-two finish by any team this season.

However, he insists there will be no complacency from him or his team, despite their current dominance.

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“It’s difficult to predict the next couple of races,” he said.

“This is the first one-two this year, I think it shows how difficult the season has been for everyone.

“Ferrari were extremely competitive – probably more competitive than everyone expected in the race. Both of them, Felipe (Massa) I think was only a little bit off Fernando, so yeah, they were quick in the race.

“We know their car works in all circumstances, so we have to stay on top of our game, focus on ourselves and do what we can.”

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Third-placed Alonso had led the championship since winning at Valencia in June, but the Spaniard was keen to remain positive in spite of losing the lead in the standings.

Ferrari may not have been able to match Red Bull, but the Maranello outfit appeared to have taken a step forward as they were much-improved in qualifying trim and typically competitive during the race.

“We are always on the limit, but we feel comfortable like this,” said Alonso. “We seem to extract the maximum from the car when we are under pressure and there are four beautiful races to come with good possibilities for us to fight for the championship.

“In the end, I’m sure there will be some circuits where we are a little bit more competitive, and some circuits where we are maybe not competitive enough, but overall, in the last four races now we need to score seven points more than Sebastian, that will be extremely tough but we believe we can do it.”

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Massa underlined his recent improvement with fourth to allow the Italian team to move above McLaren into second in the constructors’ championship.

Kimi Raikkonen was fifth ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, Romain Grosjean and the Toro Rosso pair of Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo.

After the race, McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh hailed Lewis Hamilton’s dogged drive to 10th as “heroic” and one of the best in the team’s history.

Having had to deal with so many problems, Whitmarsh was in no doubt about the quality of the 2008 world champion’s performance.

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“I thought it was going to be very unlikely he would get to the end of the race because I thought he would probably consume all the tyres we had available for him,” said Whitmarsh.

“Most things that could go wrong did go wrong. I think he showed fantastic spirit and grit to get to the end and get the most hard-fought world championship point I can remember in the history of this team.

“For one point you don’t get much more heroic a drive.”

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