The dramatic Korean Grand Prix (Part 7)
The 5th place holder in the drivers’ standings Jenson Button was struggling vitally now as the 7-time world champion Michael Schumacher was continuously challenging the McLaren driver for the 5th place. On the other hand, the rest of
the championship contenders excluding Mark Webber were up ahead racing for the podium positions as Mark Webber retired out of the race and it was quite certain that Formula 1 will see a new championship leader by the end of the race.
The stewards announced that they were investigating the incident between Jarno Trulli and Bruno Senna while Schumacher dived up the inside of Button to take the fifth place. This was bad news for Button as he needed to score vitally in this race. Lucas di
Grassi slid out of contention and made some contact with the side barriers, which was enough to finish his race.
Yamamoto rejoined the track after heading into the pits for a tyre change and was now down in the 20th place. On the other hand Vettel scored the fastest lap of the race up until then and lead Fernando Alonso by 3.5 seconds now as he began the
28th lap. Jarno Trulli was having an over dramatic race as he decided to return to the pits again and finally decided to retire as his teammate was in 14th place chasing Timo Glock.
Hamilton took his performance up a notch and went quicker than Alonso in the 27th lap decreasing the Spaniard’s lead to just 3.3 seconds. Nico Hulkenberg was trying to maintain his seventh place ahead of Robert Kubica in eighth place followed
by Barrichello and Sutil in 9th and 10th places respectively.
Button was facing some more problems as the race proceeded and was now under a lot of pressure from Hulkenberg and Kubica. McLaren mechanics lined up in the pits presumably for Jenson Button to switch him to intermediates. Jaime Alguersuari tailed the group
in 12th place with a 12 second lead over Glock.
As expected, Jenson Button went into the pits and came out on fresh rubber. Sutil followed Button into the pits and rejoined the track after a total pitlane time of 25.2 seconds. Hamilton scored the fastest lap in the 28th lap at a 1m53.914s and
began to close in on Alonso’s Ferrari. Vettel told his team about his full wet rubber’s conditions and wanted to pit soon.
However, Red Bull promised Sebastian Vettel more rain. Vitally Petrov passed Kovalainen for the 14th spot but the Finn spun later on as a result of an attack from Sebastian Buemi. Button was way down in 15th place after his pit stop
while Adrian Sutil had to suffer a spin after his pitstop.
Vettel responded with the fastest lap of the race until then and increased his lead to a 3.6 seconds margin over Alonso. Hulkenberg decided to pit from the eighth place while Button finally showed some aggressiveness as he closed in on the 14th
place driver Kamui Kobayashi and was just 1.3 points adrift.
Alonso did not want to stay behind so scored his own fastest lap of the race at that point while Hamilton was not able to respond in anyway and was falling behind the Ferrari. Nico was in 11th place and rejoined the track as Buemi crashed and
lost his left front corner.
The safety car had to be deployed for a third time after the restart and Hamilton decided to respond with a pitstop as Alonso and Vettel continued to race. The top 10 excluding Hamilton was out on worn rubber as the 32nd lap began.
Sebastian Buemi tried a move on Timo Glock for the 12th place but misjudged and smashed into the side of the Virgin of Glock before the safety car came around the track to pick up the leader Sebastian Vettel to begin the third safety car period.
The safety car once again led the cars into the 33rd lap and it seemed that the safety car will not disturb the race for long as the marshals just had to clear some debris from the track caused by Timo and Sebastian Buemi’s collision.
Tags: