2012 Formula One World Championship
The start of the season was unpredictable, with seven different drivers winning the first seven races of the championship. a record for the series. It was not until the European Grand Prix in June that a driver, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, won his second race of the year. Alonso was the championship leader for the next seven races, taking his third won in Germany and finishing on the podium in the United Kingdom, Italy and Singapore. However, first-lap retirements in Belgium and Japan allowed others to catch up, and defending World Champion Sebastian Vettel—like Alonso, a two-time winner—took the lead in the sixteenth race of the season. Vettel, too, had problems during the season; contact with a backmarker left him to finish outside the points in Malaysia, while alternator failures at the European and Italian Grands Prix cost him valuable points and exclusion from qualifying in Abu Dhabi led him to start from the pit lane. Vettel entered the final race of the season with a thirteen-point lead over Alonso. Alonso needed a podium finish to stand any chance of becoming World Drivers' Champion, but in a race that finished under the safety car, Vettel finished in sixth place, scoring enough points to win his third consecutive championship, becoming the third driver to do so. In the World Constructors' Championship, Red Bull Racing secured their third consecutive title when Sebastian Vettel finished second at the United States Grand Prix.