The dramatic Korean Grand Prix (Part 8)
After 32 laps in to the race, Sebastian Vettel was once again waiting for the safety car to lead the pack starting from the 33rd lap.
Vettel thought that it would be a wise decision to pit before the safety car period and Alonso had similar thoughts. Glock and Kovalainen followed the two leaders in the pits and it seemed that Glock might now come out after being swiped from the side by
Buemi.
The front running pair of Sebastian and Fernando joined the race after pitting but Alonso had a slow stop, and therefore, fell behind Hamilton. Vettel, on the other hand, retained his lead after taking an advantage of the gaps between the cars that were
yet to make a pitstop.
The stewards announced that no further action regarding Trulli versus Senna would be taken after running a thorough investigation of the incident. The pack formed up now with Vettel leading Hamilton and Alonso in 2nd and 3rd places
respectively.
Replays later showed that Ferrari’s right front tyre changing mechanic dropped the wheel nut causing a delay in Alonso’s stop. Massa was in fourth place followed by Michael Schumacher, Barrichello, Petrov and Hulkenberg to complete the top 8 positions.
The stewards further announced that they were investigating the incident between Buemi and Glock’s incident. As the 34th lap began, Petrov gained the most after the shuffling due to the safety car period and made the right decision by pitting.
Hamilton was worried about his front tyres as he told his team that the front tyres were going off already.
After a safety car period of 2 laps, the stewards announced that racing will begin once again in the 35th lap. Alonso rapidly took over the 2nd place after overtaking Hamilton behind Vettel as Hamilton made a fumble before heading into
Turn 1. Massa was pressurizing Hamilton as the McLaren went very wide into Turn 1 and cost the McLaren driver some vital on track time. Hulkenberg was overtaken by Kubica from the inside at Turn 3 for the eighth position while Vettel increased his lead to
1.5 seconds once again.
However, the young German was able to retake his track position before the end of the 35th lap in order to restore the order. Hamilton found his comfort zone soon after and the Massa’s pressure on him decreased as Schumacher started attacking
on Massa. Adrian Sutil made a risky move on the British driver Jenson Button and succeeded as Button slid down to the 15th place.
Vettel scored the fastest lap as he completed the 36th lap to increase the gap between him and Alonso to 1.2 seconds. This was the first good lap on the intermediates. Hamilton was struggling vitally as he was unable to match the pace of the leading
drivers and was a further four seconds behind Vettel.
Adrian Sutil did not want to stop as he was charging through the midfield; he passed Heidfeld for the 12th place and targeted Kobayashi as his next victim. Adrian was able to make a good move on Kobayashi but out braked before heading into Turn
4 and handed the position back.
As the 38th lap passed, Vettel scored another fastest lap at 1m50.852s but Alonso refused to give up on the race leader as he wanted to take full advantage of Webber’s retirement. Alonso was asked by his team on the radio to protect his tyres
particularly in Turns 7 and 8.
With just 30 minutes in the race, the light was now slowly fading and the track was getting darker as the race progressed. There were just 16 laps remaining in the race and the fight at the front of the field between Vettel and Alonso started to get fierce
now.
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