Vettel's triumph not a surprise: Alonso

Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso said that Sebastian Vettel's fourth drivers' championship at the Indian Grand Prix here Sunday did not come as a surprise to him.

"Vettel has been very dominant. He has had many wins with a very strong second half of the year. It is not a surprise that he has become World Champion. I think he took the title three to four races ago and it was just a matter of mathematical calculation that was left to do. In sports this happens; someone can always do better than us," Alonso told IANS after the Formula 1 race at the Buddh International Circuit (BIC).

The Spaniard started eighth with medium tyres and had two altercations with Red Bull's Mark Webber and McLaren's Jenson Button in the first lap which all but ended his challenge.

The former double World Champion couldn't recover from there and finished outside the points in 11th position.

"The strategy was a good one. It could have worked for us as well as it did for Webber. But everything is not in our hands. The contact with Webber made it an uphill task for us and there was no place or time to recover from there and there was nothing we could do," added Alonso, who has been Vettel's main rival in the sport for the last four years.

Vettel and his team Red Bull created history Sunday by winning four consecutive drivers' and constructors' world titles, respectively.

The 26-year-old German becomes the youngest driver to win four titles and puts himself in elite company of drivers with four titles or more.

Only Michael Schumacher (seven titles), Juan Manuel Fangio (five) and Alain Prost (four) feature in that list.