Vettel Wins Disappointingly Farcical Korean Grand Prix

Sebastian Vettel has won what has turned out to be a disappointingly farcical Korean Grand Prix as the DRS has yet again dominated a race in which drivers failed to pass unless assisted by the talentless device.

After such an exciting Qualifying session yesterday, we looked set for a stunning race and after the first 4 corners, it seemed the promise had become reality as drivers scuttled around trying to avoid each other as places were swapped at will. Button dropped down from 3rd to 5th as he drove wide on the exit of Turn 4 and Massa launched an attack on Webber up to 3rd place momentarily before loosing out to the Aussie into Turn 4. Hamilton, however, lost out to World Champion Sebastian Vettel on Lap 1 and soon after all focus turned to the DRS and who was within a second of the driver ahead to gain the advantage. 

And that was unfortunately how the race was practically run, with Hamilton struggling to use the DRS to pass Vettel and later on in the race Webber failing to use the DRS to pass Hamilton. The ability of KERs cancelled out any advantage of using the DRS, and apart from Vitaly Petrov slamming into the back of Michael Schumacher (due to too much use of DRS be it noted!) that brought out the Safety Car, the race was pretty much a stale mate, something that should never be the case in Motor Sport!

Mark Webber did gain 2nd place for a slit second heading into Turn 1, but that one moment of skill from the Aussie was immediately cancelled out by Hamilton who had the DRS advantage heading down the long straight and retrieved his position back from Webber.

Meanwhile whilst all of this gadget aided racing was going on Sebastian Vettel was romping away in the lead, and eventually won the race a dominant 12 seconds ahead of eventual 2nd placed man Lewis Hamilton who managed to crack a smile during the podium ceremony.

Maybe I’m being too cynical and not accepting the new breed of F1 racing that has been born this last season, but it’s plainly obvious now that overtaking has become something of a formality and not something a driver can look back on and think “What a hard fought move! I worked hard for that!”. I’ve always thought that all of these gadgets should be forgotten about and that manual gearsticks should be brought back into the sport thus forcing drivers to work harder in the cockpit, and also forcing drivers to sometimes miss a gear which would then lead to a passing possibility un-aided by artificial “Mario Kart” like gadgets. It worked in the 70s, 80s and early 90s and in those days passing was common place with drivers working extremely hard in the cockpit, take a look at Ayrton Senna fighting his McLaren around the streets of Monaco in 1990 on YouTube and you’ll see what I mean.

Negativity aside, Vettel drove a superior race and it’s a shame such a dominant race should be marred by such farcical racing due to these false and unsporting gadgets. Yes the likes of IndyCar have a push-to-pass gadget but its use is much more free. The drivers get a fixed amount of times they can use the device which gives them a boost reminiscent of DRS and they can use it wherever they wish on the track. But once it’s all used up, you’re vulnerable to the car behind who might well have a couple of push-to-passes remaining. Maybe F1 should employ this gadget and get rid of DRS and KERs. Either way it’s not a promising future for F1, which seems to have gone full circle from the use of active suspension and traction control in the mid to late 90s and early 00s to the banning of such devices, F-Ducts last year and now DRS and KERs. What ever next to aid passing I shudder to imagine.

Anyway, next up is the inaugural Indian Grand Prix, and fingers crossed we can have a less DRS dominated race!

Race Classification:

The Korean Grand Prix
Korea Auto Valley, Yongam, Korea;
55 laps; 305.909km;
Weather: Dry.

Classified:

Pos  Driver        Team                       Time
 1.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           1h30:01.994
 2.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes           +    12.019
 3.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           +    12.477
 4.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           +    14.694
 5.  Alonso        Ferrari                    +    15.689
 6.  Massa         Ferrari                    +    25.133
 7.  Alguersuari   Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +    49.538
 8.  Rosberg       Mercedes                   +    54.053
 9.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +  1:02.762
10.  Di Resta      Force India-Mercedes       +  1:08.602
11.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes       +  1:11.229
12.  Barrichello   Williams-Cosworth          +  1:33.068
13.  Senna         Renault                    +     1 lap
14.  Kovalainen    Lotus-Renault              +     1 lap
15.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +     1 lap
16.  Perez         Sauber-Ferrari             +     1 lap
17.  Trulli        Lotus-Renault              +     1 lap
18.  Glock         Virgin-Cosworth            +     1 lap
19.  Ricciardo     HRT-Cosworth               +     1 lap
20.  D'Ambrosio    Virgin-Cosworth            +     1 lap
21.  Liuzzi        HRT-Cosworth               +    3 laps

Fastest lap: Vettel, 1:39.605

Not classified/retirements:

Driver        Team                         On lap
Maldonado     Williams-Cosworth            31
Petrov        Renault                      17
Schumacher    Mercedes                     16