Formula One: Korean Grand Prix – Practice Sessions (Part 4)
It was a new day. Followed by an interesting first day of practice, it was time for the final practice session that subsequently lead to the qualifiers.
Hello and welcome to bettor.com’s feature on the third practice session for the Korean GP. McLaren and Red Bull set the pace on Friday and looked to continue their fight throughout the weekend.
Unlike the first two periods, which were 90 minutes each, this was a 60 minute stint. The question irking millions of Formula 1 viewers was which driver would eventually set the pace before the qualifiers. The weather was sunny, the track was dry and the
temperature was 19 degree centigrade; this was certainly a good omen.
The session got underway as drivers headed out to conduct their installation laps. All 24 drivers looked rather tentative, reminiscent of the first practice session where after an entire 15 minutes; none of the drivers had posted a flying lap.
Moments later, however, Alguersuari kicked off proceedings as he set the first timed lap in his Toro Rosso.
The times started to pour in. With 20 minutes remaining on the P3 clock, both the McLarens and the Red Bulls along with Alonso in his Ferrari were battling for top spot again – The top 5 title contenders were occupying the first five slots.
The Renault of Robert Kubica joined the party as he upset the order with the second fastest time. After a few nervous moments, the session came to a close.
Kubica ended up one better as he was able to set the fastest time in final practice ahead of Hamilton, Alonso and Webber. Button slotted in 7th and Vettel in 16th!
The classification for the FINAL practice session was as follows:
R. Kubica – Renault L. Hamilton – McLaren Mercedes F. Alonso – Ferrari M. Webber – Red Bull N. Rosberg – Mercedes GP F. Massa – Ferrari J. Button – McLaren Mercedes N. Hulkenberg – Williams M. Schumacher – Mercedes GP 10. A. Sutil – Force India 11. V. Petrov – Renault 12. R. Barrichello – Williams 13. S. Buemi – Toro Rosso 14. K. Kobayashi – BMW Sauber F1 15. J. Alguersuari – Toro Rosso 16. S. Vettel – Red Bull 17. N. Heidfeld – BMW Sauber F1 18. V. Liuzzi – Force India 19. J. Trulli – Lotus F1 20. T. Glock – Virgin F1 21. H. Kovalainen – Lotus F1 22. L. di Grassi – Virgin F1 23. B. Senna – HRT F1 24. S. Yamamoto – HRT F1
It was a rather unexpected end to the session. While the top running constructors fought out amongst themselves, the Renault came out of nowhere like the dark horse to take the top spot. The Polish driver topped the timings with a flying lap of 1 minute
37.354 seconds – 5 hundreths of a second faster than the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton in 2nd place.
A testament of the fact that the track had quickened progressively was in the form of the lap times of the first 6 drivers as they touched the 1 minute 37’s. Sebastian Vettel’s 16th might have seemed like a shocker at first glance, however seeing
the number of laps he did justified his position. The Red Bull driver was the only one to do under 10 laps in the period – 6 less than the top contender, Kubica’s 15. It was thus plain that Vettel was merely conserving his machinery to be able to go full blast
come qualifying.
With drivers from 3 different teams topping a practice session apiece, it was still anybody’s game. Brace yourself for an exciting shoot out in qualifying.
Stay tuned...
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