Vettel Takes Title Lead With Victory in Korea

Photo courtesy of BBC Sport

Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel took a dominant victory in the Korean Grand Prix and in doing so took the lead in the world championship title from Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.

It was Vettel’s third victory in a row and he became the first driver this year to win four races. He was followed to the chequered flag by teammate Mark Webber who finished second and Alonso who rounded out the podium.

Vettel began the race in 2^nd position, behind pole sitter Webber, however by turn one the German had already managed to eclipse his colleague forcing Webber to settle for second place after challenges from both Alonso and McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton.

For the third time is as many races, a first lap incident ravaged the Grand Prix with Japanese Sauber driver Kamui Kobayashi running into the back of McLaren’s Jenson Button ultimately taking him and Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg out of the race.

Kobayashi served a drive through penalty on lap eight for causing the collision.

This was the second race in a row that Rosberg had been involved in a race ending collision on the first lap, whilst for Button, it was his first since the 2009 Belgium Grand Prix.

“It’s as if the race is two corners long. I don’t know what’s going on but it’s pretty disappointing. It’s a long race and there are so many overtaking opportunities here so there’s no need to do that.” Button said.

The race continued with Lewis Hamilton entering the pit lane on lap fourteen, the first of the frontrunners to do so, followed by fifth place Felipe Massa of Ferrari, Webber, and sixth place Kimi Raikkonen on lap fifteen, all of whom retained their track position.

With Kobayashi struggling after the result of the earlier incident, he was forced to retire on lap 18 followed by HRT driver Pedro de la Rosa on lap 20 with a failed gearbox.

It was not a good weekend for McLaren with Jenson Button forced out and teammate Hamilton struggling for downforce and pace. After lapping around a second slower than those around him, the British team were forced to change their strategy for their remaining driver from a two-stop race to a three-stop, resulting in a tenth place finish for Hamilton.

The 10^th place result effectively puts Hamilton’s title hopes out of reach.

Meanwhile, Red Bull became increasingly anxious about Vettel’s front-right tyre towards the end of the race, warning him over team radio to back off in certain corners around the track. However he prevailed and along with teammate Webber led the Red Bull team to their first one-two victory for the season.

Ferrari’s Alonso finished third and Brazilian teammate Felipe Massa fourth after Massa’s race engineer Rob Smedley warned his driver that he was “a little bit too close to Fernando” and to back off a few seconds.

Lotus’s Kimi Raikonnen finished fifth, stretching his lead over Hamilton in third place in the championship but is 48 points adrift of Vettel with only 1000 points still available in the four remaining races: India, Abu Dhabi, USA and Brazil.

Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg showing some resilience and impressive driving finished sixth followed by the other Lotus Romain Grosjean in seventh. Torro Rosso drivers Jean-Eric Vergne (8^th) and Daniel Ricciardo (9^th), along with Hamilton rounded out the final points positions.