F1: Sebastian Vettel's inch-perfect driving

Watching TV coverage of Sebastian Vettel pulling away from Jenson button by almost two seconds a lap while Button left Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber behind around the Marina Bay circuit in Singapore leaves one in no doubt that Vettel and his Red Bull car are dominant, even on the street circuits that are McLaren's forte.

Some say that Vettel has to win pole position and to hare off into the distance because he isn't actually a very good racer. There is some small truth in that, although his race craft is - somehow (quite how is a mystery because he spend so little time anywhere but in front) - improving and he has rescued decent finishes from poor starts during this triumphant season.

Watching his drive on TV, quite how he builds up those unassailable leads that are becoming a hallmark of his 2011 season is not at all clear: it seems that his strategy is to make the best start possible, take no prisoners at the first one or two corners and then to pull away as everyone else squabbles behind him.

There is no doubt that this is true but it does not account for just how dominant he is: his pace suggests that he must be hitting every kerb, straightening every corner and chicane as much as he can. But that doesn't make much sense: Adrian Newey, Red Bull's chief desigher, is famed for producing fast cars that are somewhat fragile. If Vettel smashed into every kerb for the best parts of two hours, the car is very unlikely to survive. Formula One cars are not designed to last the whole season: they are designed to get to the chequered flag on race day and, even if it's a struggle, to get around a slowing down lap and into scrutineering. After that, it doesn't matter if every nut and bolt falls off - and very few cars finish a race without a problem of some sort.

But Vettel does not thump the kerbs, or rather, he does for two laps at the end of qualifying and the first two laps of a race. After that, something that the cameras don't convey to TV viewers takes over.

Vettel is an incredibly accurate driver. Once he has the track to himself, he knocks out lap after lap after lap of demonstrable precision. He drives to the edge of the track - the black stuff, not the red and white that most drivers consider part of the race track. Around the Marina Bay circuit, he placed the car two or three centimetres from the right hand wall down the straight in front of the Bay Grandstand which he came onto after an S bend and came off with a 90 degree left corner that regularly catches out others.

Button, Mr Smooth, was slightly further away from the wall - he takes no risk he does not have to take. Vettel has such confidence in his own skill and in the car that putting the car exactly where he wanted it for the turn in at the end of the straight is not - in his mind - a risk.

Around much of Marina Bay, the drivers are in what amounts to a topless tunnel: they can see concrete walls covered in different coloured banners, but they cannot see much else.

But they can see the boards that say 100 and 50 metres to the corner. On the relatively short Bay Grandstand straight, the cars are still on full throttle as they pass the 100 metre board.

In his pre-McLaren days, Fernando Alonso was the king of precision driving: camera angles showed how he would hit the kerb in exactly the same place, lap after lap after lap. Vettel is not so exciting: he is Yahudi Menuhin to Alonso's Stefan Grapelli. With Alonso, there was always the feeling that he was right on the edge, that he was delivering something dangerous that could go horribly wrong at any time - but which due to his brilliance and sense of balance would not.

Vettel, after he has build up a small cushion, is less risk averse: technically more competent (which is an astonishing realisation when comparing him to Alonso) and it is that competence that allows him to continue to build that cushion while not risking harm to the car - and while keeping his tyres in shape.

Vettel's 2010 championship was a lot more scrappy. Leaving Singapore needing just one point from four races to secure the 2011 championship, Vettel can be considered as a certain double champion.

Webber cannot understand where Vettel gets his pace from in theoretically identical cars. Now the Aussie's arguments with the team over favouritism have been settled, he is scratching his head, openly questioning the difference in performance - but acknowledging that it's not because Vettel has a better car.

The comparison might be made with McLaren: both Red Bull and McLaren have two drivers of very different styles: Button will drive around all day displaying car control that ChiefOfficers.Net has previously described as defying physics. But when he can, Button will drive the car in the most conservative way, preserving his tyres and the fragile car as much as possible. Hamilton doesn't care about the car so long as it gets to the end of the race before falling apart. He will hit anything in sight - including other cars - in his quest for a few metres advantage. Webber is known as a "hard charger" and while he tries not to run into things, he has his fair share of shunts. Again, getting the car to the finish in the best place possible is his primary concern: like Hamilton, Webber doesn't much care what shape it's in when it gets there.

Vettel has a relationship with his car; Webber is much less invested. Hamilton sees the car as a tool, Button sees it as an extension of himself.

It seems, as this season comes to a close, is that the relationship between car and driver is almost karmic: around the streets of Singapore, the cars that most rewarded their drivers were those that are, literally, cared for.

And that, as much as his precise driving, might be Vettel's secret weapon.