The dramatic Korean Grand Prix (Part 9)
With just 16 laps left in the inaugural Korean Grand Prix, Sebastian Vettel led the race ahead of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton in 2nd and 3rd places respectively. With Mark Webber out of the race, it was quite clear that we would
see a new championship leader by the end of the race.
Heikki Kovalainen decided to pit from 16th place and Bruno Senna decided to take over the spot. Hamilton finally stepped up and scored the fastest of the race, showing that his McLaren has some serious pace. Sutil lost his spot to Alguersuari
after making another error and giving Jaime the opportunity to slice down the inside to take the 13th place.
Lewis Hamilton was once again the fastest in the first sector of the 40th lap of the race and was closing in on Fernando Alonso for the 2nd place in the classification. The track was still drying and the racing line became a little
visible by the 41st lap.
Meanwhile, Vitaly Petrov had a huge accident and was surely out of the race at the final turn of the circuit before the start finish line. He was in 11th place before retiring. His Renault was completely destroyed but Sebastian Vettel jumped out
of the car and was unhurt. The leaders were passing the accident site and no safety car was deployed yet.
As the teams completed 41 laps of the race, the drivers were now eligible of receiving full points even if the race had to be called off, as 75% of the race had been officially complete. Petrov lost control while changing the direction of his car from Turn
17 to Turn 18 near the kink that lead to the pit lane.
Lewis Hamilton did not want to stop now and charged for another fastest first sector. It seemed that he was getting faster with every lap. The McLaren driver lost traction control at the rear while he was travelling at a high speed and slammed into the tyre
wall as he entered the pitlane but was lucky as his car did not receive any damage.
Vettel was trying to overlap his way across Yamamoto while Alonso scored the fastest lap of the race. The top three drivers passed Yamamoto in the 43rd lap and there were just 12 laps remaining in the race. Button was in 14th place
and almost 1 and a half seconds behind Alguersuari.
Light was fading quickly as the sun was setting and providing just some level of illumination. Alonso was catching up to Vettel as the race leader had a bad run through the traffic. The sun was expected to fade away in less than 10 minutes while the race
had almost 20 minutes left in it.
The battered Renault remained untouched by the end of the run-off area near Turn 18 amazingly. With just 10 laps remaining, Alonso passed his way across Sebastian Vettel to take the lead while Hamilton told his team that the light level was fine. Vettel
was looking rough and slowing down before his engine finally exploded. This was bad news for Red Bull as both of the Red Bull drivers would be unable to score a single point.
Alonso became the new race leader followed by Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa. Sebastian looked devastated. All drivers gained a position as the Red Bull mechanics looked devastated at the result.
With just 8 laps remaining in the race, both of the Red Bull drivers were now out of the race and McLaren and Ferrari got the ideal situation to score some vital points and closed in on the championship leaders. It seemed that the drivers’ standings was
going to take a vital turn by the end of the race once again.
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