Korean GP Preview

Korea made its debut on the F1 calendar last year and just about got there after lots of will-they/won't-they get the circuit ready in time. All kinds of problems beset the Koreans including political infighting, tensions with their 'noisy neighbours' in the North (grand prix envy) and the fact that the top surface of tarmac was only put down ten days before the race. This led to a very greasy track and Safety Car driver Bernd Maylander visiting a lot more run-off areas in his pre-GP tours. This year all the infrastructure will be in place and those poor old journalists covering the event won't have to stay in Korean 'love hotels'.

The track is one of Hermann Tilke's best and it includes the longest straight in F1 - which didn't quite live up to expectations for overtaking last year thanks to the wet weather. The GP eventually got under way in 2010 behind the Safety Car with many drivers radioing back that it was too wet to race and Lewis Hamilton radioing back 'let's go for it'. It started late in the day because of an incessant downpour of rain and it was getting very dark at the close. Too dark some said (almost certainly including Niki Lauda and Jackie Stewart). This year the weather prospects are a lot better.

Lewis is a big fan of the Yeongam circuit because it presents overtaking opportunities: "You can tell that this track has been designed to be a good place for racing - Turns Four, Five and Six are a bit like the end of the lap at Istanbul Park, where you can attack on the inside and the outside and try and fight your way past."

These follow on from the DRS zone which is on the long back straight down to Turn 3. How effective it will be is difficult to judge with the activation point 500 metres after Turn 2 and those cars with muscular KERS ready to deploy it 500 metres after Turn 2.

When we got here last year it was still a five-way fight for the title and neither Vettel or Webber scored points; Sebastian losing an engine late on whilst leading the race and Mark Webber losing control of his back end and sliding into the barriers before bouncing across the track to take out Nico Rosberg. Fernando Alonso won the race and Ferrari began to sense that the championship had turned in their favour.

With such a long straight the conventional wisdom is that it will favour the likes of Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren and not Red Bull - but having won at Monza, that wisdom might need a bit of refinement. In the wet last year Michael Schumacher scored his best comeback result, a fourth place, and Rosberg - who was further up the road when he was taken out - could potentially have got a podium. The Force India-Mercedes will also want to press home any straight-line speed advantage in their battles with Sauber, while one good result for Renault will probably keep them clear of Vijay Mallya's team for the rest of the season.

The stewards did a pretty good job last race aided by Alan Jones. This time round it's Ulsterman and former Lotus driver Martin 'Mr Juicy'* Donnelly helping make the calls. He is of Martin Brundle's era, (and could be loosely described as part of the Norfolk mafia, having run the Lotus sportscar operation from Norfolk) so if there is anything controversial Martin should be able to get a few whispers. It was interesting to read Brundle's Times column after Monza when he said that Sebastian Vettel had gone to the stewards afterwards to ask about Fernando Alonso's move in pushing him onto the grass. When asked this directly in a press conference Vettel denied it, but Brundle would almost certainly have got this information from his old mate Derek Daly who was the driver steward for the race.
So much information and disinformation in F1.
Seb told Jenson last weekend that he didn't see him at the start, but the onboard footage from the Red Bull showed that he had two good looks to the right-hand side on his way down to Turn 1. Wonder if Jenson'll follow that one up?

Pirelli have decided to go more extreme in the last few races of the year - and when that happens on abrasive surfaces we tend to have teams saving tyres. So don't be surprised if we see more no-shows in Q3 again. Paul Hembery of Pirelli wants to gather more information on tyre wear for next season and reckons that the supersoft won't last long at Yeongam. "Because of the abrasive surface and comparatively high lateral loading in Korea we might expect a higher number of pit stops than usual from the drivers basing their strategies around the softer tyre. Some may prefer to concentrate on the harder compound, so it's going to be another very interesting race tactically."

The teams are also going to spend the weekend getting their heads round quite a few issues such as the Resource Restriction Agreement, teams sitting out Q3 and taking one less set of tyres to races. It won't be dull. And at least this year it won't smell of fresh paint. That's next race.

Weather: http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/5019
Source: planetf1