Thanks for joining me bright and early this morning, and for your emails and
tweets – sorry I couldn’t include them all. See you next weekend for the
race in Suzuka and another early start.
09:11 A pretty unhappy looking Lewis Hamilton is being interviewed on
Sky. He’s full of praise for the “incredible” traction of the
Sauber, which meant Nico Hulkenberg was able to keep the Brit behind in a
slower car.
09:07 The usual refrain from Red Bull’s Christian Horner, who says the
team are taking things “one step at a time”. Come on Christian, he
can win the title in Japan and Ferrari are nowhere.
09:03 No dramas with the podium interviews, but Kimi amusingly said the
pass on Romain was “not too difficult”. From the replays it looked
very tight.
Our F1 correspondent Tom Cary predicts the stewards will be busy after
this one:
08:58 Champagne for Sebastian Vettel, but a miserable afternoon for
Alonso, who is now 77 points behind in the championship. The German can now
mathematically win the title at the next race in Suzuka, Japan.
08:57 Meanwhile, some strong words from Mark Webber on the state of the
Pirelli tyres after he got a puncture from Sergio Perez’s debris:
08:56 No boos this time for Vettel as he walks onto the podium, and
right too.
08:55 Sam Pann seems to think the driver vs. car question is too
obvious for debate:
“I cannot believe you are dragging up this old chestnut!
“The answer has to be 50/50, obviously. Good car can’t win without
good driver, and vice versa. 50/50.”
08:52 He didn’t lead every single lap, but it looked as if Vettel had
this one under control for most of the race, even if he wasn’t as dominant
as in Singapore. Red Bull are always very cagey talking about the
championship, but considering the fact that Alonso finished sixth, surely
the title is over now? (Even if not mathematically.)
08:50 Martin Brundle said he enjoyed “the non-Vettel race”
today, and it has to be said apart from the non-battle for the lead that was
a hugely entertaining grand prix. Hats off to Hulkenberg; man of the day for
me.
Vettel, Raikkonen, Grosjean, Hulkenberg, Hamilton, Alonso, Rosberg, Button,
Massa, Perez, is the top ten.
LAP 55: Sebastian Vettel wins the Korean Grand Prix! He hasn’t led
every single lap, but he’s been on dominant form, and takes his third win in
a row in Korea! Raikkonen takes second, Grosjean third, Hulkenberg with a
superb fourth, and Hamilton is fifth, with Alonso sixth.
LAP 54: Hamilton has just got one lap to do it now, and I’m not feeling
optimistic. Vettel goes onto his last lap, looks like he has this one in the
bag and most likely his fourth world title, barring a disaster.
LAP 53: Jenson Button has been on this set of tyres for what seems like
an age, and he loses seventh place to Nico Rosberg.
This heat sensing camera shows us that the tyres are, well, hot. Shocking that
one.
LAP 52: Hamilton is closing throughout the lap but then just can’t get
pass on the main straight to turn three. Amusingly he asks on team radio: “Anyone
got any suggestions?” Doesn’t seem so right now.
LAP 51: Fastest lap from Vettel, a 1:41.666. Hulkenberg’s tyres have
got to be getting critical now. But somehow he keeps Hamilton behind again!
Some mega traction and top speed from the Sauber. Hamilton must be
absolutely livid in the cockpit, because there doesn’t seem to be much he
can do. Four to go.
LAP 50: Five laps to go, and Vettel looks to have this one in the bag
right now. Kimi is in second, with Grosjean charging behind. The team seem
to want their young French driver to get past the experienced Finn.
Hulkenberg is still fourth, keeping Hamilton, Alonso, Button and Rosberg
behind. Who is going to be vulnerable as the tyres wear even more?
LAP 49: I’ve said it several times already, but Hulkenberg is driving a
brilliant race. It makes it look all the more crazy that he has been
overlooked for both Ferrari and McLaren drives of late.
Meanwhile, Lotus are onto Romain Grosjean giving him some encouragement that
he can get past his Finnish team-mate. He doesn’t sound convinced. Vettel
has a lead of four seconds of Raikkonen.
LAP 48: Hamilton finally gets past Hulkenberg on the pit straight. But
then the German is immediately back past him on the next straight; immense
traction for that Sauber. This whole battle brings Alonso into the fold, who
tries to get pass Hamilton into turn four, but can’t quite pull it off.
LAP 46: Very good defensive driving from Nico Hulkenberg, who uses his
straight line speed advantage, and manages to keep Hamilton behind. And all
the while, the German says on team radio: “I hope we don’t all fall off
like bannanas at the end”.
LAP 45: What a battle further down the field! Maldonado goes off the
track, comes back out and pulls off an extremely brave move in turn four
down the inside on Guttierez. But then at turn 10 Guttierez gets back, and
then Massa nips through as well! Maldonado then ran wide and lost four
places in one corner.
Here’s the four cars battling away:
LAP 44: Encouragingly for the Frenchman, Grosjean is told on team
radio: “You are racing him (Raikkonen)”. Will be very interesting
to see how that battle pans out.
LAP 43: Lewis is tucked up behind Hulkenberg, but the Sauber’s straight
line speed is doing him plenty of favours as he keeps the Brit behind.
The Telegraph’s Formula One Correspondent Tom Cary tweets on the
ridiculousness of the previous safety car, when a fire marshalls car drove
onto the main straight unannounced with the cars coming behind it at 200mph:
LAP 42: Adrian Sutil has a penalty for speeding in the pitlane. I
expect he’ll be getting another one for crashing into Webber pretty soon
too. Vettel has opened out two seconds on Raikkonen already. Grosjean third,
Hulkenberg fourth, Hamilton fifth, and Alonso falling back slightly down in
sixth.
LAP 41: A good restart from Vettel, but Raikkonen keeps fairly close.
Alonso and Hamilton battling very closely, as the Spaniard gets past
initially but Hamilton then fights back. Top quality wheel-to-wheel driving
from both of them.
LAP 39: So, Vettel leads, Raikonnen second, Grosjean third, Hulkenberg
fourth, Hamilton fifth. Safety car in next lap. Weird stuff with the
marshalls car.
LAP 38: In the middle of all that, Raikkonen has got past his team-mate
Romain Grosjean on the main straight for second place. The two came very
close – with the Finn going to Ferrari who will Lotus be backing? We’re
under the safety car once again.
Here’s Sutil crashing into Webber. The poor Australian gave everyone plenty of
space and he was clean wiped out.
LAP 37: Oh my days what is going on! A fire marshalls car just drives
onto the track unannounced, and it’s going down the main straight with all
the cars going 200mph behind it! And the safety car is out immediately.
Whoever is driving that fire marshalls car is going to get the sternest of
tellings off from race director Charlie Whiting.
LAP 36: Sebastian Vettel leads away after the safety car pulls in,
Raikkonen very close to his team-mate, as Hulkenberg moves past Hamilton
into fourth, and Adrian Sutil goes flying into Mark Webber! What was he
doing there? For the second race in a row, Webber’s car is now on fire and
he’s out!
LAP 35: Force India say they don’t know what happened with di Resta
yet. He crashed? No? Finally, safety car in at the end of this lap.
LAP 34: I share Lotus’s frustration as we wait under the safety car:
Webber told he has to go to the end on his super softs, which would seem to be
a tall order. He is being helped by – I’m going to say it again – the
immensely frustrating rule that back markers have to unlap themselves and
get to the back of the field under the safety car.
LAP 33: From the replays it looks like Perez had a huge lock up into
turn one, and then down the straight towards turn three the front right
basically explodes. Webber had to pit for a puncture which has put him in
11th. Such a shame for the Australian as he was looking very good.
The run down is: Vettel, Grosjean, Raikkonen, Hamilton, Hulkenberg, Alonso,
Button, Rosberg, Maldonado…
LAP 32: Mark Webber is in the pits again, just two laps after he was in
for a stop. Maybe his car was damaged by the debris from Perez’s car? All
quiet under the safety car. With the (ridiculous) rule that back markers
have to unlap themselves we could be waiting for a few laps before we get
going again.
Formula One, and tyre suppliers Pirelli, do not want to see images like this
again:
LAP 31: Oh my days what a terrifying moment for Sergio Perez! Going
down the main straight and his right front tyre disintegrates! Echoes of
Silverstone here. And the safety car is out. The debris nearly hit
Webber as he followed him. Vettel and Grosjean pit. Webber had just pitted
before the safety car so this could do him plenty of good.
LAP 30: Hamilton is finally into the pits. He basically lost a pit stop
in time over the last five or six laps, so not exactly sure what the
Mercedes team were thinking there. Thankfully for the Brit, he’s still ahead
of Hulkenberg and Alonso.
A scary view from Rosberg’s cockpit as sparks start flying from his front wing
at about 200mph down the straight:
LAP 29: Alonso is in the pits after Rosberg. It takes an age for them
to change the wing! Hamilton on the radio, and it’s understandably expletive
filled given how badly his tyres have gone off. “When are you going to
bring me in? These tyres are *****!”
LAP 28: Rosberg is right with Hamilton, and cruises past him with a DRS
move. The Brit sensibly gets out of the way. But now Rosberg’s front wing is
basically hanging off! Sparks are flying all over the place, he’s into ther
pits. Webber is past Alonso meanwhile.
LAP 26: Oh Paul, not again. Fourth race in a row he hasn’t finished,
and it looks like another driver error. He gets on the curb and in slightly
bizarre fashion loses the back end. As he spins around onto the grass, the
rear of his car hits the wall. Here he is out of the car:
LAP 25: Surely Hamilton needs to come in. He’s lost five seconds in two
laps to his team-mate, and is falling way off the leaders. Raikkonen pits
meanwhile, and the extremely bumpy pitlane exit causing him some troubles.
Nico Hulkenberg is once again demonstrating his class today. Is he hurt by the
fact that he’s one of the taller and heavier drivers so gets overlooked by
the bigger teams? The Beeb’s James Allen agrees the German deserves
better than Sauber:
LAP 24: Hamilton getting a bit tetchy on the radio to his engineer, as
he loses five seconds in two laps to Vettel. His engineer says his right
front is going through “the graining phase”. Amusingly, Hamilton
replies: “I’ve been through the graining phase, and it’s dead.”
LAP 23: The gap at the front is 4.1 seconds. Felippe Massa meanwhile
moves up to 13th in another Ferrari-Sauber battle. Kind of illustrates the
differing class of those two sets of team-mates, as Hulkenberg and Alonso
continue to battle for 6th.
LAP 22: Daniel Ricciardo moves his Torro Rosso past Paul di Resta into
12th place, a relatively straightforward DRS move.
Feel free to email me with your views on the race so far, whether Korea is the
worst race on the calendar, and how much of F1 is car and how much is
driver. The email is daniel.johnson@telegraph.co.uk.
LAP 21: Fastest lap of the race from Vettel, a 1:44.4. Romain
Grosjean’s challenge is still there, but he isn’t exactly on the German’s
tail. Alonso looks to be very frustrated stuck behind Hulkenberg. The German
complains that his tyres are going off, but he’s told to stay out.
LAP 20: Here’s the view from Alonso’s car as he chases Hulkenberg, and
by the end of the straight before turn three he’s side by side! Into the
next corner he tries to go round the outside, but just stays behind. This is
make or break stuff for Alonso, championship wise, with Vettel leading.
LAP 18: Sometimes radio messages to Sebastian Vettel can make you very
depressed. His engineer tells him he is quick in the second sector, and
basically tells him to slow down a bit fo fear of wrecking his tyres. There
is a small band on each of the cars right front tyres where they are
suffering from graining.
LAP 17: Nico Rosberg picks off Daniel Ricciardo for fourth, who still
hasn’t pitted. Kimi is still behind Fernando, with Mark just holding station
behind.
Couldn’t agree more with Gary Hartstein’s tweet on the Perez and
Maldonado battle:
LAP 16: Vettel leads by four seconds, and is eeking it out ever so
slightly. Alonso has gone from looking like he’s going to be attacking
Hulkenberg, to be under pressure from Kimi Raikkonen for the second time in
this race already.
LAP 15: When I saw Perez looking to overtake Maldonado, I thought it
had crash written all over it. But in the end it was a very clean move from
the Mexican. All credit to Maldonado too, who is doing a solid job in 11th
place in what is a very off the pace Williams car.
LAP 14: Alonso is closing in on Hulkenberg looking for sixth place, and
he kicks up a bit of grass on turn two. That car looks a bit of a handful.
Vettel’s engineer “Rocky” tells him to focus on “stint length”,
i.e, two stops please Seb.
LAP 13: Hamilton with the fastest lap of the race, a 1:45.1, and he’s
back within DRS range of Grosjean. The front three are covered by just a
couple of seconds. Meanwhile Perez and di Resta are under investigation,
after the Mexican basically forced the Force India driver off the track as
they went side by side. Naughty from Perez, good be in danger of a penalty
there.
Kevin Eason of The Times sums up Perez’s predicament nicely:
LAP 12: Encouragingly after these stops the front three are all within
sight of each other. Webber leads as he is yet to pit, but now he dives in
for a change of tyres.
LAP 11: Grosjean comes out right in front of Hamilton, who has DRS, can
he get the job done? No! Good defensive driving from the Frenchman as he
covers the inside, but the Brit is still hustling behind. Vettel is in for
his first stop, and it’s a 2.6 second stop. Absolutely rapid.
LAP 10: Hamilton and Alonso are in the pits for medium compound tyres;
looks like those two will struggle to do only two stops today, so we could
expect to see them in for three. Grosjean is in a lap later.
LAP 9: Fernando Alonso’s title challenge is fading by the lap, frankly.
Kimi Raikkonen picks up the slipstream on the long straight down into turn
three, and makes a solid move down the inside. Alonso is right back at him
into turn four, but can’t get past the Finn. Positive signs for these two
Ferrari team-mates next season that they didn’t bump into each other.
Here’s the view from Kimi’s Lotus as he’s in the slipstream:
LAP 8: Five seconds covers the top three, so not as one-sided as we
might have feared.
Robert Highfield from Hong Kong gives his view on the driver/car
debate:
“Given how often the two team cars qualify right next to each other,
you can assume that, generally, its car. However, at the top, the difference
seems to often be three or four places. I think that is true in the race
too, so I conclude that if a car is good enough for 1st to 5th, it’s the
driver who will decide which of those it will be.”
Meanwhile, Mark Webber continues his march through the field, and is up to
8th.
LAP 7: A slight train is forming by Nico Hulkenberg in fifth, but the
German is doing a fine job, as he always seems to do. Vettel leads by 2.6
seconds, Hamilton is 1.3 behind Grosjean in third.
Lotus with a nice message for Daniel Ricciardo after their man Raikonnen
overtook him a few laps ago:
LAP 6: Webber makes a good move around another crash-prone driver, this
time the Williams of Pastor Maldonado, moving himself up to 9th. All quiet
out front with Vettel leading comfortably from Grosjean.
LAP 5: Here’s the replay of of the start, with five cars trying to go
into one into turn three, and unsurprisingly it doesn’t work, with Felippe
Massa spinning as he went charging up the inside of Alonso. I bet Ferrari
will be pleased.
LAP 4: Kimi Raikkonen battles his way into 7th past Ricciardo, the man
who got the Red Bull drive for next season he so wanted:
And Jenson is in for a new front wing. A dismal season gets worse.
LAP 3: Mark Webber is already 12 seconds off the lead, but he makes a
great move on McLaren’s Sergio Perez, particularly considering the Mexican
isn’t exactly contact-free when it comes to wheel-to-wheel racing. Webber
goes round the outside breaking into to turn four and gets the job done
going into turn five. Jenson Button, meanwhile, is complaining of front wing
damage.
LAP 2: So after two laps its Vettel leading, Grosjean second, Hamilton
third, Rosberg fourth, Hulkenberg fifth and Alonso sixth. The prediction of
the Lotus of Grosjean winning isn’t looking so ridiculous now…
LAP 1: A stunning start from Vettel as he streaks away, but disaster
for Hamilton as Romain Grosjean pulls a nice move down the inside into turn
three. And the Ferraris touch! Massa spins and falls right to the back,
Alonso holds on to 6th place. Vettel leads by two seconds.
07:03 And they line up, one light, two lights, three lights, four
lights, five lights, and we’re racing in Korea!
07:01 Just seconds away now as they make their way round on the
formation lap (with a handy summary of the top of the championship).
06:58 For the first time this season Sauber have both drivers starting
in the top ten, Hulkenberg in 7th and Guttierez in 8th. The team helpfully
tweet their opening tyre strategy:
06:55 Pre-race predictions: the Sky F1 pundits have gone for the Lotus
of Romain Grosjean, can’t help but think that’s one of the silliest picks of
a winner for a while, but I could be wrong. I fancy Hamilton to do it. He’ll
hang back on the opening straight, then use the slipstream and stream past
Vettel on the huge straight down to turn three, and keep him behind for the
rest of the race. We should find out in just a few minutes.
06:50 A couple of things I recommend you cast your eye over before the
race starts in 10 minutes time. First, Tom Cary has done an
excellent interview with the legend that is Sir Stirling Moss, who says
it’s a “disgrace” for fans to boo Vettel. (He also stands by his
comments about female drivers).
And there had been forecasts of torrential rain with a typhoon in the region,
so here are some of the best
F1 races to be interrupted by extreme weather.
My personal favourite from Spa in 1998, when Damon Hill won memorably for
Jordan, is below:
06:45 Paul di Resta had another relatively mute qualifying yesterday,
and is in desperate need after a good result after crashing out in
Singapore. Speaking on the grid he said their car “should be optimised
for the race”. Apologies for not the most glamorous screengrab in the
world, Paul. If you’re watching the TV coverage as well, you’ll now how the
displeasure of listening to the national anthem with the rumble of Formula
One cars in the background.
06:42 Lotus, of obscene Twitter fame when Raikonnen announced he was
moving to Ferrari, have a poke at their own man Romain Grosjean as he
relaxes ahead of the race:
Twitter: Lotus F1 Team – Hey, @RGrosjean! We know that blower feels good, but you’ve got a #KoreanGP podium to get! Step on it! #F1 http://t.co/1gPGndXRzO
06:39 Here is the Spaniard explaining how he always manages to have
such blistering starts (last time in Singapore he went from 7th to 3rd).
06:36 Apologies for the slight delay there, battling some technical
photoshop gremlins. The maestro that is Fernando Alonso has been talking
Martin Brundle through his qualifying lap. Asked where he hopes he can
finish the answer is, “anything ahead of Vettel, 4th, 5th, 7th, I don’t
care, we can’t afford to lose more points.” He’s right on that one,
being 60 points behind with races running out.
06:24 I don’t mean to put a downer on the Korean Grand Prix before it
has even begun, but there’s plenty of debate in the Formula One fraternity
about whether the race in Mokpo, four hours from Seoul remember, is
the worst on the calendar.
Former driver and Sky commentator Martin Brundle is particularly
scathing: “Korea is my least favourite grand prix now. It probably
edges Shanghai which is another venue where you notice the disinterest.
“I don’t like this event simply because it is too far away from
civilisation. But I love the track. If it was 20 minutes from Seoul it would
be great. But if there’s one thing this place lacks it’s a bit of soul.”
06:21 McLaren have had a frankly woeful season, and qualifying
yesterday was true to that form, with neither Jenson Button or Sergio Perez
making it into the final part of qualifying. But as Tom Cary tweets,
clearly there are things going on behind the scenes to try and better their
chances for next year:
06:16 Here’s Vettel giving his usual celebration after taking pole
position. Mark Webber had qualified third, but for his Singapore taxi
indiscretion with Fernando Alonso, he takes a ten place grid penalty.
And here’s the video of Mark Webber grabbing that lift – you make up your own
minds, but both Alonso and Webber have been pretty scathing of the decision
over the last couple of weeks.
06:13 There was a slightly weary sense of inevitability to qualifying
yesterday, as
our Formula One correspondent Tom Cary writes, as Vettel marched to his
42nd pole position.
Here’s how they line up:
1 Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull)
2 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
3 Romain Grosjean (Lotus)
4 Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
5 Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
6 Felippe Massa (Ferrari)
7 Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber)
8 Esteban Gutierrez (Sauber)
9 Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus)
10 Sergio Perez (McLaren)
11 Jenson Button (McLaren)
12 Daniel Ricciardo (Torro Rosso)
13 Mark Webber (Red Bull) – PENALTY
14 Adrian Sutil (Force India)
15 Paul di Resta (Force India)
16 Jean-Eric Vergne (Torro Rosso)
17 Valtteri Bottas (Williams)
18 Pastor Maldonado (Williams)
19 Charles Pic (Caterham)
20 Giedo van der Garde (Caterham)
21 Jules Bianchi (Marussia)
22 Max Chilton (Marussia)
06:00 Good morning, and thank you for joining me bright and early for
the Korean Grand Prix. It was almost the race that never was from the very
beginning, and there are definitely those in the Formula One fraternity who
think it should have stayed that way.
In 2010 the race was only confirmed days before as building preparations
overran, and grand designs organisers had for the venue have never come to
fruition.
Four hours away from the capital Seoul in Mokpo, this was meant to be a
sporting Mecca with casinos and hotels popping up around the track itself.
But the investment never came. So what you are left with is a track in the
middle of an expanse of marshland; quite the contrast from the glitz and
glamour of the last race in Singapore.
The track is even bizarrely composed, with two huge straights right at the
start of the lap, followed by a fast flowing section, with twisty street
circuit style section to finish.
But Korea has many positives. It has made for entertaining racing – the start
of the lap encourages many of the tit-for-tat battles Formula One fans
yearns for – and with a typhoon in the region the widely is likely to cause
unpredictability and drama, as it did in 2010.
Korea (and the races in Asia generally), with their early morning starts,
separate what I might snobbishly describe as ‘real’ Formula One fans from
the ‘I judge a race by how many overtakes there are’ DRS Formula One fans,
which is no bad thing.
And while it appears as if Sebastian Vettel’s march to a fourth consecutive
world title is unstoppable (he qualified on pole again), that does not mean
we are left without some intriguing storylines for this morning’s race.
Can Mark Webber win a race before his final season is out? Will Paul di Resta
persuade a front-running team to give him a drive next season?
And after this week’s news that Jenson Button and others are worried about
weight restrictions for next season, will the Brit and fellow F1 tall man
Nico Hulkenberg fit in their respective cars?! All that and more will become
clearer in the few hours. Watching Mark Webber charge through the field from
13th should spice things up a bit.
Tweet @danielt_johnson,
or email daniel.johnson@telegraph.co.uk
with your thoughts and opinions on the race.
Questions worth considering: who is more important in F1, driver or car? (And
no, both is not a valid answer) Which is your favourite early morning race
and why? Should Korea be ditched from the calendar?