Well we have learned many things today - one: any forecast of rain is definitely lies, two: everyone hates right front tyres and three sometimes jeeps get lonely and spontaneously need some friends. But in the end we found out that we can frankly ignore Vettel now because everyone else can have plenty of fun without him while he is busy vanishing off into the distance - it was a race of close calls and some lucky escapes - Fernando notably being narrowly missed by Massa. We also learned that what this season needs with the performance distribution being the way that it is that a conveniently placed mid-race safety car is needed to made the second half of a race brilliant. Korea out-performed it's traditional dullness and inactivity. And with November not too far away now - Rosberg is now taking bookings for fireworks parties, with bonfire services provided by Webber.
Perhaps this is the final visit to Korea, but like Valencia last season this could have been the grand finale for the track - putting in a race like that might be a sign that it is on the way out - even though a representative for the track before the race claimed that everything was ok for a continued position on the calendar.
The Race
Surprise, Surprise it was very dry - and I can predict that there will be a threat of rain in Japan before it magically disappears over the course of the weekend, because that seems to be pattern of the recent races. Anyway rant aside the start was fairly uniform - except for Vettel who just drove away from Hamilton off the line, Gutierrez made a dive down the inside of Massa at turn one, at the time it didn't seem that significant... But as the field entered the massive back straight, the bunching caused by Gutierrez's pass resulted in drivers trying to go five wide - deciding that wasn't going to work Perez dropped back in line and they settled for four wide. This was never going to work and Massa tried to pass everyone at once and span across the apex, mere centimetres from the side of Alonso's car - that'd make the people at Ferrari very happy. As the field dove around the Ferrari, Button hit Gutierrez and Sutil hit Raikkonen - and Maldondo gained 10 places... without hitting anyone...
Both Sutil and Button had to pit to replace their front wings because the damage was causing tyre overheating... somehow... probably due to not redirecting air properly. A couple of drivers were working their way forward including Raikkonen passing Raikkonen and more interestingly Nico Hulkenberg passing Alonso - the Sauber was going quickly once again. Raikkonen found himself catching up to the Ferrari who was going through the 'graining' phase on the tyres and as a result was losing pace to the Lotus. Kimi didn't have too much trouble in passing Fernando because the Spaniard didn't have the grip to defend the position. It was because of this early tyre degradation phase that people became very interested in what Button was doing. After his early stop for wing damage and a change onto the medium tyres - he went and set fastest lap, sparking a hive of activity as everyone filtered through the pits in the coming laps. We were also informed that Van Der Garde pushed Bianchi off the track but the TV folk have no idea anyone exists outside the top ten so we saw no evidence of the incident. Either way it was a penalty for Giedo for this alleged infringement.
During this pit stop sequence Webber lead the race... but it wasn't to last as the German Bloke cycled to the front very shortly afterwards. But unlike Singapore Grosjean in second and Hamilton in 3rd could still see Vettel once they retook the front positions - so maybe, just maybe there was hope... then Vettel improved the lead to over four seconds again... Further back Di Resta was making friends with Perez as the pair battled into turn four - and Sergio rather forcefully made sure that the Force India wasn't going to take the position pushing Paul off the track. Speaking of making friends Hulkenberg was collecting a train of his own, as Alonso, Raikkonen and Webber had all started to queue up behind the Sauber. However just like Toro Rosso in Monza - the straight line speed of the Sauber and good traction made the car damn near unpassable. Fernando tried several times to take the position away from Hulkenberg but to no effect and had to defend from Raikkonen at the same time.
Then the oddities of the race began - not that Sky picked it up, hell I only found out on the BBC race report - was that Daniel Ricciardo came for his first stop on the alternate strategy earlier than anticipated. It appeared as a strategy call, but BBC reveal that Ricciardo had a pigeon lodged in the sidepod which needed to be removed... Which is a first for me... Turn out that the whole Red Bull giving of wings has gone one step too far. While Daniel was fleeing from the RSPB, Hamilton was complaining massively about tyres as he was losing close to three seconds a lap to those cars around him. Speaking of those who like to do a bit of complaining - Di Resta completed a quartet of crashes by putting it into the barrier. However for once he actually admitted responsibility for the accident which is one for the notebook there.
More oddities were abound as Hamilton's team radio was being censored as he insulted the tyres with some form of profanity because Rosberg closed in rapidly to take the final podium position. But as Nico made the DRS assisted pass, his nose section fell off - resulting an a huge explosion of sparks as it dragged along the ground, it looked brilliant even if it was a tad dangerous. Because Rosberg was now en-route the pits it meant Hamilton had to stay out even longer on his finished tyres. It was around this time that we were due our second round of stops, skewed slightly by the early first stops. Most of the drivers did cycle through the pits - and just as Webber came out from his second stop he found himself behind Hamilton and Perez, as Raikkonen had just passed the McLaren. But that was all too normal so Sergio's front right tyre exploded taking his front wing within it down the main straight showering the track with debris and brining out a very helpful mid-race safety car.
Under the safety car those at the tail of the field were being told off once more - because apparetly they were going too fast when catching up to the train of cars, it's rulings like this which make safety car interventions miles too long. Webber also had to pit again due to picking up a puncture from Perez's tyre failure and dropped into the mid-field. This made things considerably worse for the Australian on the restart because this placed his Red Bull in the way of Sutil's Force India as it span under breaking of turn 3. The crash ruptured the sidepod and instantly Webber's car burst into flames. Oddly it took a long time for the fire marshals to get to the car - which suggests Red Bull could do with hiring Kovalainen as this is his kind of speciality as it was at Caterham. There was now quite a lot of smoke from the car it burned to the ground blowing across the track.
Meanwhile Raikkonen pounced on a mistake by Grosjean to take second place into turn one - and Grosjean did not appreciate it at all - asking for team orders to swap the places back around - but all of that was forgotten when the field turned onto the back straight. In addition to a column of smoke arising from the bottom of the straight there was a massive jeep in the middle of the track - what in the almighty hell was that doing there - not only was it driving around in the race was going on. But instead of sticking to the side of the track under double waved yellows it was driving down the centre of the track - nothing about this was right at all - naturally the Safety car was scrambled... So we had a jeep leading Vettel with the SLS Mercedes running behind Chilton at the end of the queue - what the hell is going on... It turned out to be a fire containment truck which was released by the local fire chief to attend to Webber's charred carcass of a Red Bull. I think if things were not looking good for a return to Korea in the future - monumental cockups like this will not help.
At the second restart the top three pulled away, of course Vettel pulled away more so than the two Lotus' behind him - everyone else was trapped behind Hulkenberg in his Sauber. As once more the German proved to be impossible to pass, which just added to make Hamilton more displeased with his day - complaining that the amount of traction the Sauber had was unreal - which also had a lot to do with strategic deployment of KERs... another thing Sky managed to miss... Hamilton even asked his team if they had any suggestions as to how to deal with Nico because he was gaining attention from the cars growing behind him. Lewis finally managed to drive down the inside of the German into turn one, but the Sauber merely drove back past the Mercedes even before deploying the DRS. This brought Alonso into play trying to go round the outside of each of the corners in the 4-6 complex, constantly trying cut back ahead of Hamilton but didn't make the pass.
Further back there was another group of drivers trying to put each other into the wall - Maldonado was ahead of Gutierrez, Perez, Massa and Bottas in a fight over 10th place and one point. Things started in turn three when Pastor held off Esteban and Massa nearly pushed Perez into the barrier while Bottas watched over the whole battle. Contact continued into turn four when Massa and Perez came together nudging the McLaren out wide as he tried to follow Maldonado past Gutierrez. You'd think with the conventional passing places done for the lap, the battle would settle down - but nope - Gutierrez launched the car down the inside of Maldonado in the middle of the twisty middle sector. This pushed both cars wide gifting Massa two free places. Pastor also lost places to Perez and Bottas - dropping four places in the space of two corners.
Somewhere in the middle of all this both of the Toro Rosso's retired, Ricciardo was stopped on the outside of the track and Vergne pitted into retirement - we can assume that the RSPB got to Ricciardo for revenge for trying to store a pigeon in the sidepod because that doesn't meet welfare standards. But despite all these two battles - mainly the one behind Hulkenberg the positions remained the same for the rest of the race. Vettel took yet another victory and now has the opportunity to take the inevitable title in Suzuka. Raikkonen was not instructed to hand the position back to a displeased Grosjean - who hilariously was instructed to smile on the podium by the team, I thought anyone other than Raikkonen would be pleased to be be there anyway... Hulkenberg held off immense pressure throughout the race to score Sauber's highest position this season. A frustrated Hamilton ended up fifth ahead of Alonso and Rosberg - who was no longer showering everyone with sparks. Jenson dropped down to 8th at the end of the race with tyre wear, Massa recovered from the lap one spin to 9th and Perez scores a single point.
The Bonus Points Championship Points Winners
Well today will be remembered for and odd series of events in the middle of the race, but there were some very strong performances resisting pressure and staking a claim for a 2014 drive:
- 25pts - Nico Hulkenberg - Now he has a car that can make progress Hulkenberg is doing a remarkable job with it under attack from world champions all race
- 18pts - Romain Grosjean - Defeating Hamilton on the opening lap and staying with Vettel roughly during the race
- 15pts - Kimi Raikkonen - 9th to 3rd demonstrating that Kimi like most things doesn't really care about qualifying
- 12pts - Nico Rosberg - Because that spark display was very cool
- 10pts - Esteban Gutierrez - For passing someone without using the three main straights
- 8pts - Alonso/Hamilton - Some brilliant contact free racing over several corners
- 6pts - Sergio Perez - Well causing that safety car caused some fun afterwards so have points
- 4pts - Dario Franchitti - For still being alive after that shunt in Houston
- 2pts - South Koreans - The only country in a while not to boo Vettel
- 1pt - Di Resta - For admitting he'd made an error for once
- 1 extra point - Chip Ganassi - seeing him on a little scooter to see Dario was hilarious
The Penalties Series
The stewards had quite a busy day in Korea following the race with reprimands left right and centre, and like Webber found out in Singapore - reprimands lead to actual penalties.
- Jules Bianchi - 10 place grid penalty for getting a third reprimand for not slowing under yellows
- Charles Pic - 10 place grid penalty for getting a third reprimand for not slowing under yellows
- Adrian Sutil - Drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane
- Giedo Van Der Garde - Drive through penalty for pushing Bianchi off somewhere
The investigations into Massa vs Perez, Perez vs Di Resta and Sutil vs Webber resulted in no action
The Penalty Points Series
Where do I begin:
- The Fire truck - That was horrifically orchestrated
- Korean Fire marshals - Where were you
- Sky Commentary team - Massively off form, constantly stating there was a tyre difference between the two Lotus' when they pitted on the same lap
- TV coverage - No coverage of the Bianchi/Van Der Garde incident that resulted in a penalty
- Rain - for being so constantly absent
- Safety Car rules - If parts of the track are clear why not allow the lapped cars to catch up
- Daniel Ricciardo - Stealing pigeons is not permitted
Looking Forward to Suzuka
The Japanese GP is home to one of the greatest circuits on the calendar, Suzuka is a brilliant track having everything you could wan't from a venue - ranking up there with the likes of Spa for the most challenging races of the season. Unfortunately because it is such a downforce based circuit it will likely play directly into the hands of Vettel again - it is the sort of track where he'd just drive away from the field. A little shame that this also represents the first race of the season where Vettel could actually claim this title which he is inevitably going to win anyway. This requires Alonso to finish lower than 9th at the race he crashed out of last season following contact with Raikkonen on the first lap. If a similar set of circumstances unfold... otherwise it is merely delaying the inevitable.
But Suzuka is immensely popular with the drivers and fans alike, so whatever happens in terms of the championship we should be on for a good race next weekend, so until then this is farewell from blog HQ.
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