MANILA, Philippines -- Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel continued with his winning ways in the 2011 Formula season after he emerged victorious at the Monaco Grand Prix last Sunday.

Luck was on Vettel’s side however as his strategy of staying on the same soft tires almost backfired during the closing stages had it not been for a “Red Flag” — brought about by a crash between Vitally Petrov and Jaime Alguesari on lap 72, allowed the German driver to change with a fresh set of tires.

Just before the Red Flag, second-placed Fernando Alonso trailed by Jenson Button — who both opted to pit twice, were already breathing down Vettel’s exhaust as his one-stop strategy started to go wrong with his tires suffering from severe tire degradation.

Race experts believe that Alonso and Button would have been able to pass the German in just a couple of laps had it not been for the race stoppage where the drivers were allowed to change to newer tires.

Shod with fresh tires, the race became a procession after the race started handing Vettel the easy win.  Alonso and Button crossed the finish line in second and third places, respectively.

“Today was a crazy race. It’s difficult to imagine you can one-stop at this race, but that’s more or less what we did,” Vettel said.

“Our first pit stop was not spot on and we lost the position to Jenson. I was surprised when Jenson came in and we had to react, he was pulling away on the soft tires while I was on the hard tires.  I thought ‘don’t give up’ and kept pushing to close the gap. The safety car helped us, but it was no walk in the park to do roughly 60 laps on the same set of tires – our estimation was not allowing that!”

“We took a lot of risks,but that made today’s win even sweeter. Towards the end of the race the tires I had were nowhere close to fresh – but I saw the only way to win the race was to stay out. I had 20 laps where I was under pressure from Fernando and Jenson, it would have been a difficult final six laps, but there was another safety car and a suspended race, so we were able to change the tires. I’m extremely happy,” Vettel added.

Alonso, for his part, said that Button would have won the race had the first Safety Car period not happen.

“The first safety car played a big part in the outcome. Jenson was on his way to victory at the time,” Alonso said.

“We gained one position with the first safety car but maybe lost victory with the late red flag,” he concluded.