Mutate Now

The Korean circuit at Yeongam was finished just in the nick of time (well, mostly finished anyway – that grass on the sides is really just painted dirt!) and the Grand Prix continues on schedule this weekend. The dominant themes this weekend are dust everywhere, skidding/spinning/sliding on & off of the track, and freakish tyre wear.

Track Conditions

All racetracks evolve during a weekend of heavy racing, developing new wrinkles, bumps and soft spots as the powerful F1 cars rocket down straights and skid into corners. However, the freshly-laid tarmac (only 1 week old!) and loose dust along the brand new Korean circuit will be effected much more than older, more established tracks, so this will be a uniquely challenging event for all the drivers. (As the BBC commentators described it, imagine running towards a loose carpet and then jumping/skidding onto it. Creases and wrinkles develop in the carpet where you skidded. The same happens to fresh tarmac under the powerful braking forces of these F1 cars as they head into the corners. Thus, each race develops new bumps in the braking areas.)

Another difficulty, unique to the Yeongam circuit, is apparently a design flaw in the layout – the pit lane entrance is smack in the middle of the racing line after a flat corner (a 5th gear corner), creating a very dangerous situation. The entrance appears suddenly on the right side of the counter-clockwise circuit and there’s very little room for exiting cars to get out of the way of cars racing past. We could see some harrowing exchanges if two cars are following closely and the leading car decides to pit. The issue has been hotly discussed during meetings with drivers, track officials and team crew chiefs, but nothing short of a redesign seems to help.

Practice 3 Highlights

Button has a new engine and Alonso finally has a working F-duct. Meanwhile, a new kerb was laid overnight at turn 16 where Sakon Yamamoto spun out yesterday. The kerb is intended to prevent drivers from cutting the corner too tightly and bottoming out, but it looks like the kerb is getting hammered from drivers cutting the corner anyway. Alguersuari complains of oversteer on tyres that look ragged after only 8 laps, but the engineers tell him to stick it out. Bridgestone representative Andy Stovart (sp?) told BBC that the tyres are “graining” from dirt rubbing across the tyre surface – sometimes in 2 directions on the same tyre!

Thermal imaging shows how hot the tyres get, mostly due to heat off the brakes emanating outward…

All the drivers struggle to learn the new course during the final free practice, figuring out where they can push their car and where they need to hold back. Even Singapore’s reigning champion Sebastian Vettel careened off into the dirt during his last lap, but got back on track without any harm to the car or himself.

But it was Kubica who drove the quickest lap in the end! The world’s only Polish F1 driver gave a dazzling performance near the end of practice 3 and left the competition in his dust. The exact times, according to the official Formula 1 site, were:

Robert Kubica and Renault…set the fastest time with 1m 37.354s, just 0.048s ahead of Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren on 1m 37.402s and 0.072s ahead of Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari on 1m 37.426s. Mark Webber was 0.087s off the top in the leading Red Bull after a lap of 1m 37.441s… Nico Rosberg followed the leading quartet with 1m 37.629s for Mercedes GP.

Behind them, Felipe Massa took sixth for Ferrari in 1m 37.955s, ahead of McLaren’s Jenson Button on 1m 38.419s, Nico Hulkenberg on 1m 38.501s in the lead Williams, Michael Schumacher on 1m 38.630s in the second Mercedes, Adrian Sutil on 1m 38.632s in the lead Force India, Vitaly Petrov on 1m 38.668s in the second Renault and Rubens Barrichello in 1m 38.733s in the second Williams.

Vettel was way back in 16th place, but probably won’t stay there for long…

I’m having trouble publishing video from this practice, so hold tight while we sort out the technical difficulties…

Q1 Results

Hamilton is back in the game with the fastest lap in Q1 while Buemi barely makes the cut. Kubica was 17th for awhile and things were looking grim (despite a stellar performance in P3) but he pulled it together in the final lap and jumped to 6th. Full results:

Fastest Lap = Lewis Hamilton McLaren 1:37.113
2. Vettel Red Bull 1:37.123
3. Alonso Ferrari 1:37.144
4. Webber Red Bull 1:37.373
5. Massa Ferrari 1:37.515
6. Kubica 1:37.703
7. Rosberg 1:37.708
8. Schumacher 1:37.980
9. Hulkenberg 1:38.115
10. Button 1:38.123
11. Heidfeld 1:38.171
12. Petrov 1:38.174
13. Barrichello 1:38.257
14. Kobayashi 1:38.429
15. Sutil 1:38.572
16. Alguersuari 1:38.583
17. Buemi 1:38.621

Q2 Results

Red Bull enjoys another 1-2 win while Button continues to have problems. Massa performs brilliantly and will hopefully continue to challenge the Red Bull boys.

Fastest Lap = Mark Webber Red Bull 1:36.039
2. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 1:36.074
3. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:36.169
4. Lewis Hamilton McLaren 1:36.197
5. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:36.287
6. Rosberg 1:36.287
7. Button 1:37.064
8. Schumacher 1:37.077
9. Kubica 1:37.179
10. Barrichello 1:37.511
11. Hulkenberg
12. Kobayashi
13. Heidfeld
14. Sutil
15. Petrov
16. Alguersuari
17. Buemi

Final Qualifying Results

And here is the lineup, straight from the BBC broadcast:

Vettel secured his pole position at the very last second of Q3 with Webber right next to him on grid for the feature race.