Another visit to the Yeongam circuit has actually seen some development, but that statement isn't as hopeful as it may seem on the surface. Because although the hopes of seeing the vast centre of tourism grown from the empty farmlands of South Korea have completely faded into obscurity, the track has changed this time round. Which is rather odd considering the place looked as if it hadn't been used at all since the last lap of the 2011 race, each corner had acres of dust from the months of neglect coating the surface. Also faint ideals of the layout being modified to make it a little more enjoyable have been dashed, the monstrosity that is the turn 4-6 sequence still remains. In fact all that has happened is that the wall on the inside of the marina turn has been moved a little further inside, leaving a thing strip of grass, and more bland tarmac. It does sort of elude to the plans the Koreans have for the future of the track, seemingly binning the ideas of the hotels and other buildings and moving instead towards correcting the lap towards a more generic setup.
As to the session this morning, a pattern is starting to emerge, a pattern that harks back to the previous years of domination from a certain German bloke in a Blue car. Much to the despair of the contenders in the Red and Silver teams who are seeing their challenge on taking the title in the remaining five races of the 2012 season slip gently from their grasp. Fernando has seen a very comfortable lead descent into the narrowest of margins recently and further struggles in the McLaren garage have seen them slip even further back despite the evidence showing that fundamentally the car is the fastest machine. Their strongest challenger Hamilton has seemed a little zoned out looking perhaps to his new seat across at Mercedes as the title becomes much less likely. So lets see how that played out Yeongam style... it had to be done really...
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| image credit to F1Fanatic.co.uk |
Resting in the shadow of the clouds of a major ship building industry on the other side of the hill - perhaps not an ideal location for a centre of proposed tourism in the first place, no wonder development never really kicked off. The result is that the track is veiled in a dull murkiness, a landscape of drained colour and in some respects also of imagination but from the times in practice the competition on the track could improve that outlook somewhat.
First one to take to the circuit was the Caterham of Heikki Kovalainen, and as the green cycled round we looked towards the pit lane to see who else was going for a run, oddly there were no volunteers and Heikki was able to complete his lap on a completely empty track. After a few minutes alone the Caterham was joined by a flurry of cars as everyone else decided it was their turn to have a go at beating the only time resting on the scoreboard. This lead to issues with traffic round the more difficult single file section of the lap, Raikkonen had issues negotiating the Mercedes of Rosberg on his flying lap, and then roles were reversed when the German was on a flying lap having to avoid the Lotus in an identical place.
The difficulties paid off for Kimi as he went fastest, fending off competition from the rest of the field showing pace that the Lotus team hadn't showed earlier in the weekend in practice. Behind the Finn, the times were close with Massa running in second again surpassing the pace of his team-mate, however that only was only before the Red Bull team rolled out of the garage, and on cue Sebastien Vettel crushed Raikkonen's time by a massive seven tenths. At the direct opposite end of the field things were going backwards - literally. Narain Karthikeyan arrived at turn three rear wing first at a significant speed after suffering a rear break failure. It is incidents like that where having ludicrous amounts of run-off do help as the HRT didn't hit anything, just missing the back of Di Resta's Force India in the process.
As the session came to a close, something rather interesting materialised with drivers moving onto the softer tyres to make it through, the gains from the different compound caused difficulties for those who thought they were safe. Hamilton for example cascaded down through the order along with Alonso and Schumacher running a little close to relegation - all but Hamilton were on track to rescue their positions as the McLaren driver assumed he was safe at the time. Alonso escaped relegation pushing Hamilton into the final qualification place, and the only driver able to threaten that was Bruno Senna but the Williams didn't have the speed, a lap potentially compromised by a slow Ferrari on his outlap, but the McLaren was saved.
Moving swiftly on to the second session, and this time it was the Sauber of One-stop Perez setting the early time, as the main contenders made it on to the track. Sergio set the initial time from his team-mate and Di Resta in the Force India, before Webber in his Red Bull set a much faster time then those on track on the time. The dominance percolated through to the other side of the garage, as Vettel arrived and took the lead from his team-mate early on in the session. From that time Sebastien decided that he'd done enough to make it through without having to go back out using another set of tyres - and he was right. Even though the times were getting closer there was enough security in the Red Bull team going forward into Q3
Everyone else however was in danger of being relegated and the immense fluctuation in times saw drivers swapping places with each coming lap right up to the mid session break which came about once more this weekend. However the single lap plans for the end of the session took a slight hit in the same manner as it did in Japan through a late yellow flag incident as Daniel Ricciardo encountered technical difficulties towards the end of the lap. As a result the final runs of several drivers were compromised trapping some out in relegation. Both Saubers and Toro Rossos didn't make it, along with Di Resta in the Force India - but joining that list was the unusual name of Jenson Button. The reigning bonus points champion falling out at the end of Q2.
With only ten drivers remaining it was time for the start of Q3, and the two Mercedes driver lined up at the end of the pit lane - the pair probably had been there a little too long because Schumacher seemed to fall asleep. As Rosberg drove away from the line the other German just sat there, as the rest of the queue drove round the stationary Mercedes, eventually the wake up call did go out to Michael and he pottered off after the rest of the qualifiers. What made the scenario even more senseless was that both of the silver arrows only completed an out lap without setting a time, which made the concept of waiting around completely pointless. Elsewhere Hamilton was being a little impatient, first looking to pass Webber in the pit-lane when avoiding the Mercedes, but then making the pass on track after showing the nose first in turn one. A move that also proved rather pointless as just in front Webber was Grosjean so there was no free space.
From the congestion the Ferraris broke free, with Alonso leading Massa on the initial timings - Hamilton backed off to leave some space between him and the Frenchman to complete the third fastest time at the early stage. The Ferrari lock out of the front-row was interrupted by Webber's Red Bull sneaking in between the two red machines. Of course there was the small matter of a certain German bloke who went to the front of the proceedings almost four tenths clear of his title rival Alonso.
As the second runs of Q3 were about to get underway, Hamilton was up to more impatience in the pit lane when Michael was crawling out of his garage at the same time the McLaren was heading down the lane. Instead of waiting in a traditional British spirit of queuing, Lewis swerved round the German - luckily the Mercedes mechanic was clear before Hamilton made his move. On the track Webber was the first to set a final time and in an impressive lap the Australian went fastest, with a time that weathered the pressure from behind. Vettel was unable to improve, while Hamilton dragged the McLaren into third behind the dominance of Red Bull. Fernando was forced down into 4th place just ahead of Raikkon in 5th and Massa in 6th. Grosjean and Hulkenberg lined up next, and the two Mercedes cars did set a time in the end but only managed to finish 9th and 10th with Nico behind his elder team-mate.
The bonus points championship points winners
In a session that was for the most part unremarkable, but likely remains the highlight of the weekend in Korea deciding where to assign the bonus points was not a straight forward process. But here are the winners from Qualifying.
- 10pts - Nico Hulkenberg - for being the only mid-field runner to be able to break into the top ten in Korea for Force India
- 8pts - Mark Webber - an impressive pole, escaping from the shadow of the dominance the German bloke in the other car has been dishing out
- 6pts - Vitaly Petrov - for being the top driver in the bottom division group of cars instead of the usual victor Kovalainen
- 5pts - Charles Pic - for out-qualifying Glock at Marussia despite now receiving a penalty for an engine change post session
- 4pts - Nico Rosberg - Has to be awarded some points for being the only loony joining in with the dance a certain mad Korean has plagued the internet with.
- 3pts - Narain Karthikeyan - for missing Di Resta when spinning down the back straight after the brake failure
- 2pts - Pastor Maldonado - not for qualifying but for a truly epic slide during Friday practice
- 1pt - Mother's Car - After reflecting on the specs of the vehicle it turned out that Wikipedia claims it has the same weight as a current F1 car - at 640kg so deserves a point.
The penalty points championship
As there have been no actual penalties dished out for driving infractions - Pic took an engine penalty but nothing else, we move swiftly on to the penalty points series where there are some additions today.
- Michael Schumacher - for sitting around at the end of the pit lane for no apparent reason at the beginning of Q3
- Lewis Hamilton - for being all manner of impatient, just calm down seriously - diving past people in the pit-lane is not recommended.
- Mercedes - Sending both cars out at the front of the lane just to cycle round on an outlap
Looking to tomorrow
Well it's not that too far ahead from now as this has once more taken in inordinately long amount of time, and the race is scheduled to kick off on in the small hours of the morning - I'll let the sky box wake up and handle it. Because of all the early races the Korean GP is not the sort of event that would inspire anyone to force themselves out of bed that early on. There are parallels that can be drawn to Japan last weekend, as there are two blue cars on the front row looking to drive off in to the distance leaving the rest to sort it out among themselves. The fact that the cars are closer on the timesheets could help reduce the domination factor this time, combined with the fact that Mr Tilke has drawn an entire sector devoted to overtaking.
One thing that could influence the nature of the race is the prevalence of safety car interventions, something that has been a factor of both previous Korean race, although the debut event was more of an exercise in drowning. With four hours of rain and silliness, involving multiple safety car interventions, and last time Petrov and Schumacher had a coming together in turn three - the closeness of the walls and limited infrastructure trackside does increase the likelihood of needing a safety car incident. Strategies for the race do seem to veer towards one or two visits to the pit-lane - discounting any advantage low users like Sauber or Lotus may have across the race distance. I am rather hoping that by keeping expectations fairly low that the race will spring a surprise in the same vane that Valencia produced earlier. So until later on tomorrow evening this is farewell from my here at Blog HQ.
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