Korean Grand Prix: first practice review
The McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton is not willing to give up at any cost. Today’s morning saw the British driver set fastest pace once again.
The rally of Formula One cars cruised through the newly built Korean International Circuit for the First practice session held just for the debut Korean grand Prix scheduled to take place this Sunday. As the drivers flew through the circuit for the very
first time Hamilton demonstrated the fastest pace on the track.
Though the early minutes of the morning practice were held amidst dust and powder, however, with every passing lap the track kept on taming and became friendlier with the drivers.
Hamilton was able to set the fastest lap in 1:40.887s, three seconds lesser than the expected time. The other man who was seen very quickly on the track was Robert Kubica of Renault who set his fastest lap only with a difference of tenth of a second form
Hamilton.
As already expected Nico Rosberg was able to get familiar with the track very soon. He has a very good repute of being quickly acquainted with new tracks immediately and this time he was the third fastest man during the first 90 minutes of the practice.
The Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel was the closest to Hamilton among the top five title contenders as he ended forth with a total time of 1:41.371s. The other McLaren driver, Jenson Button followed his tail for fifth place with a difference of 0.569s.
The struggling driver of Mercedes GP, Michael Schumacher ended at sixth place and is quite happy with this, hoping to do even better in the upcoming sessions.
The charts’ topper, Mark Webber marked seventh fastest lap though he was expected to do better but then it is only the first session. However, the surprise of the 90 minutes came for Ferrari as Felipe Massa ended at 12th
while his teammate Fernando Alonso parked only at 15th place. However, Ferrari is not getting upset with this as they are expecting to improve with every additional lap.
The two Williams driver Nico Hulkenberg and Rubens Barrichello were also pretty promising in their Williams ending at 9th and 10th places. They were chased by the Renault driver, Vitaly Petrov who ended with 1:42.896.
As the drivers explored the track, Massa was seen committing the most mistakes running wide off the track several times. Moreover, only accident of the season was faced by Bruno Senna as his HRT spun off the circuit after suffering from a rear suspension
issue.
Some of the major issues that were noticed on the track include a lot of dust on the track due to the recently done construction work. Also, the pit lane is very slippery which could make the pit stops very risky for the drivers.
The last thing that the drivers hope to see now is rain on the final race day which is already predicted.
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