Yabbadabbadee?

Sebastian Vettel's fourth win of the season was arguably the hardest-fought, and it was a team effort. Red Bull's pit wall strategists gave Vettel the chance to win after a poor start, then an error-free defensive drive against hard-charging Lewis Hamilton sealed the deal.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner congratulated Vettel over the in-car radio, as per usual, and Vettel began to respond with his customary cry of: "woohoo!" But the emotion of this race-win seemingly caused the young German to deviate from his traditional praise for the team and thanks to his engineers.

"Yabbadabbadee, ringdingadingadingding," the young world champion seemed to say, perhaps in reference to an old, popular mobile phone ring-tone, the Crazy Frog.

Muddled messages

This was rather a rather fitting final word for the day, as it had followed a tense final third of the race, with levity provided only by F1's comically cryptic radio transmissions.

Leader Vettel was receiving safe-cracker messages like "KERS six, two clicks rearwards, do NOT discharge" - probably referring to a form of hybrid power called KERS used by the cars, and to his brake bias settings. Meanwhile, the chasing Hamilton was being told to use his "blue button" and then his "yellow button" - no idea here, but it probably wasn't a reference to his teammate Jenson Button.

Fans at home, accustomed to such deception and tomfoolery on the public-access airwaves, got a clearer message from Vettel's race engineer in the dying laps.

"Try your best to shake him off," an audibly nervous voice advised.

The 2010 champion couldn't shake off the 2008 champ, but did succeed in holding him at bay. Again the Red Bulls, who reign supreme over a single lap in qualifying, did not look as superior in terms of race pace.

Two-horse race

Vettel and Hamilton were in a class of their own in Sunday's race, finishing 35 seconds clear of everybody, and at least a full lap clear of everyone but their teammates Jenson Button and Mark Webber, who finished third and fourth.

Fernando Alonso, who ultimately finished fifth in front of his home crowd, led in the early stages after a remarkable start from fourth on the grid. The McLarens and Red Bulls eventually managed to jump the double world champion, mostly thanks to pit strategy, and then the two teams that have led the way so far in 2011 disappeared into the distance.

A trio of Germans rolled in sixth, seventh and eighth. Michael Schumacher pipped his Mercedes GP teammate Nico Rosberg to sixth spot, while Lotus Renault's Nick Heidfeld charged up to eighth after a Saturday car fire caused him to start from the back of the grid.

The final points went to rookie Sauber driver Sergio Perez in ninth, and his sophomore teammate Kamui Kobayashi in tenth.

Adrian Sutil finished 13th for Force India, and was again bested by his rookie teammate, reigning German Touring Car champion Paul di Resta. Timo Glock, the sixth German on the grid, rolled in third-from-last and three laps adrift in his backmarker Virgin car.

Vettel's fourth win of the season puts him on 118 world championship points, with an intimidating 41 point lead over Hamilton, and a 51 point advantage over his teammate Mark Webber. Counting from last October's Japanese Grand Prix, the champ from Heppenheim has won seven of the past nine races.

Author: Mark Hallam
Editor: Andreas Illmer