COOPER: Korean GP Team By Team

Formula 1

COOPER: Korean GP Team By Team

Sebastian Vettel made it look easy in Korea but it clearly wasn’t...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted October 14, 2012 Yeongam (KOR)

Red Bull Racing chief technical officer Adrian Newey (Left) wears mechanics goggles to protect his eyes as race winner Sebastian Vettel (Right) sprays champagne on the podium following the Korean Grand Prix. (Photo: Getty Images)

The Korean GP provided Sebastian Vettel with his third straight win on the back of his earlier successes in Singapore and Japan. Remarkably, it was also the first time since 2005 that a driver has led every lap of two successive races, the feat last being achieved by Kimi Raikkonen, then a McLaren driver.

Vettel made it look easy but it clearly wasn’t, as he was being told for much of the race by his engineer that he had to preserve his front right tire. He managed to make it safely to the flag, much to the relief of his team.

Others were not so happy. Mark Webber lost his shot at a win when he was passed on the first lap, Fernando Alonso gathered some more useful points but lost his title advantage, while it was a disastrous day for McLaren as Jenson Button was taken out on the first lap, and Lewis Hamilton finished a troubled 10th after a rear suspension element failed on him.

Here’s what happened to all the teams:

Red Bull Racing
Sebastian Vettel was ominously fast from the start of the weekend, and the German topped Q1, Q2 and the first runs in Q3 with apparent ease. However, when it mattered he was just pipped to pole by teammate Mark Webber, despite the Aussie losing valuable track time with a software problem in FP3. Crucially, Vettel got ahead of Webber on the first lap and gradually opened up an advantage. Despite serious concerns about front right tire wear, they made it safely to the flag to score the team’s first one-two finish of the season, with the German eight seconds ahead.

McLaren
Lewis Hamilton started the weekend well by topping FP1 but thereafter he seemed to lose his way on setup, finally getting it right again in Q3 when he earned a solid third place. Having looked stronger earlier in the weekend, Jenson Button had a messy Q2 and found himself stuck in 11th. That proved expensive when he got caught in the middle of the pack on the first lap and was hit hard by Kamui Kobayashi, forcing an early retirement. Hamilton ran fourth early on but after the first pit stops, an anti roll bar failure compromised both handling and tire wear. After switching to three stops, he finished 10th.

Ferrari
After a disappointing qualifying session in Japan, Fernando Alonso was happy enough to earn fourth in Korea, while Felipe Massa was not far behind in sixth, despite making some mistakes on his quick lap. Alonso settled into third at the start while Massa passed Kimi Raikkonen on the first lap to run fifth. He gained another place when he passed a struggling Lewis Hamilton, and then began catching Alonso in the middle of the race. However, he then dutifully held station behind his title chasing teammate as the red cars finished third and fourth.

Mercedes
Mercedes looked a lot stronger in Korea than of late, helped by good straight-line speed. Michael Schumacher was as high as fifth in FP2 but while both drivers made Q3, the team lost a little performance. Nico Rosberg earned ninth, and his veteran teammate 10th. Rosberg was caught up in the Kamui Kobayashi/Jenson Button collision on the first lap and suffered sidepod and radiator damage, and with all the water leaking out, he retired a lap later. Schumacher, meanwhile, had a disappointing run to 13th after struggling throughout for grip.

Lotus
Kimi Raikkonen had an update package including a new exhaust system, and after it worked well on Friday, he kept it for the rest of the weekend. The Finn qualified fifth, while with the standard car of Romain Grosjean took seventh spot, both men experiencing the track for the first time. Raikkonen lost a place to Felipe Massa at the start but later gained one back when Lewis Hamilton began to struggle, and thereafter had a low-key run to fifth. Grosjean was passed by Nico Hulkenberg at the start and spent much of the race battling the Force India driver, eventually finishing seventh.

Force India
The Force Indias were in and around the top 10 throughout practice and for the 10th race in a row the team was represented in Q3, Nico Hulkenberg beating the Mercedes pair to take eighth. Paul Di Resta hit traffic in Q2 and, having lost crucial time, the Scot had to settle for 14th. Hulkenberg got ahead of Romain Grosjean on the first lap and enjoyed a battle with the Frenchman for much of the race, at one point passing both the Lotus and Lewis Hamilton in one sequence. He finished sixth, while Di Resta never really recovered from his unrepresentative grid position and finished 12th, the team admitting that it hadn’t gotten his strategy right.

Sauber
Having had both cars in the top five on the grid in Suzuka, Sauber slipped back again in Korea, although the top 10 was still a target until both drivers were compromised by yellow flags at the end of Q2. Sergio Perez was left in 12th, a place ahead of Kamui Kobayashi. Both drivers were in the wars at the start, with Perez clipping Jenson Button at the first corner, and Kobayashi hitting the same driver more comprehensively at the third. He stopped for a new nose and later retired on safety grounds after also landing a drive-through penalty. Perez battled away to an eventual 11th-place finish after a green light failure at his stop dropped him behind other cars.

Toro Rosso
Daniel Ricciardo earned 16th place but the Australian stopped with a driveshaft problem at the end of Q2, and the subsequent gearbox change dropped him to 21st. His misfortune did at least boost teammate Jean-Eric Vergne from 17th to 16th, the Frenchman having looked a lot quicker until a mistake at the end of his lap. Both drivers enjoyed strong races which saw them running ahead of cars that are usually faster. Vergne ultimately gained the upper hand when Ricciardo found his car pulling left under braking. They finished in eighth and ninth places, respectively.

Williams
Williams was simply off the pace in qualifying in Korea. Pastor Maldonado earned 15th while Bruno Senna failed to progress from Q1 in 18th after being hampered by problems in FP3. Both men did at least gain a grid spot from Daniel Ricciardo’s penalty. In the race, they adopted different strategies, with Maldonado one of only two men in the field going for one stop, and Senna opting for two. The Brazilian was slowed by debris blocking the front wing, and ultimately the strategies converged as they finished 14th and 15th, respectively, with Maldonado just ahead.

Caterham
Vitaly Petrov had brake and other issues over the weekend but still managed to outqualify Heikki Kovalainen, the latter struggling with balance over the course of the lap. They qualified 19th and 20th, respectively, and both moved up a place thanks to Daniel Ricciardo’s penalty. Kovalainen got ahead at the start and stayed ahead in the first stint as both men suffered with front right tire wear. As so often this year, the two men battled for position for most of the race. Ultimately, Petrov got ahead in the last part as he came home in 16th, some 10 seconds ahead of his teammate.

HRT
Narain Karthikeyan had a nasty shock in qualifying when a front brake disc shattered and his car spun off. He didn’t set a time, but was allowed to start. A penalty for Charles Pic moved the Indian up to 23rd while his teammate, Pedro de la Rosa, was promoted to 22nd. The team suffered more worrying gremlins in the race as de la Rosa was hampered by a stuck throttle, which led to his retirement on safety grounds after 16 laps. Karthikeyan was one of only two drivers in the field to try just one stop, and he enjoyed a relatively trouble-free race on the way to 20th.

Marussia
Charles Pic out-qualified Timo Glock, who struggled for pace and made a mistake on his quick run, to earn 21st. However, the Frenchman took his ninth engine of the season and earned a 10-place penalty that put him to the back. It also moved Glock up from 21st to 20th. Glock stayed with the Caterhams in the early stages, but he paid the price for the team’s lack of KERS, which made it harder to compete. He finished 18th, some 10 seconds behind Heikki Kovalainen. Pic got caught behind the HRTs at the start and lost ground to his teammate on his way to 19th.

Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED