The final practice session of the Korean Grand Prix (Part 1)
The long list of formula one racing tracks now has a new addition in its line up and this time around they are going to ‘the land of the morning calm’. South Korea has been added to the calendar this year. It’s a 5.615km circuit and located at Yeongam. On the
second day of practice in the third session there were issues regarding the track’s state, as it was not 100% ready. The two sessions held the previous day went well as the drivers tested the track.
A good run on the track in the first two practice sessions gave the drivers some time to understand the track and in the third session they were all coming down hard in the 60 minutes to set fast lap times as they got ready for the qualifying session and
the grand prix. However the circuit had to go through some minor changes between the second and third practice sessions.
On Friday, Mark Webber had set the fastest time. There was a lot of anticipation for this track and many people were having concerns regarding the changes to the circuit’s asphalt and oil in its compound but apart from all this the track managed to keep
its cool and endure the heat of the sun and the roaming drivers around the track.
When the cars hit the track, the conditions were not so good. Michael Schumacher took to the track early and was the only one in the start to get a good run of laps under his belt but later on the other teams came up and gave a challenge.
Hamilton brought it home for Mclaren with a time of 1m40.887s while Robert Kubica of Renault came in second and Rosberg was third. Down the list were Vettel in fourth, Button in fifth and Schumacher was in sixth place.
In the afternoon the drivers were now bringing their all on to the track and pushing hard so there were no surprises as a few mistakes took place. Yamamoto caused an incident involving a red flag as he had lost control of the HRT. There was a section of
the track where his car came to a stop and the race director had to stop the session.
The session resumed and Mark Webber showed why he was leading the championship with an outstanding lap time of 1m37.942s in his Red Bull. Alonso had a good run too and completed the practice session only 0.190 seconds behind Mark Webber while Hamilton was
third. Kubica claimed a nice fourth, Button was fifth and Massa followed up in sixth and hence two Ferrari’s were in the top six during the practice.
The sun was shining and the track was a comfortable 35-Celsius on Friday. There was heavy cloud cover on Saturday and the temperature was mild. It remained dry for both the practice sessions and with no sunshine the track would remain cool.
The meeting held on Friday decided that there would be some slight changes in the track’s section that was connecting the start-finish straight. On the left-handed turn 16 a compression of sorts had formed that was to be eliminated by filling it with an
additional piece of kerbing to stop the cars from losing control at high speeds.
On the final turn the kerb was raised so that the drivers avoid cutting the apex and prevent the track from dust. Senna had a suspension failure that made him swerve off track during the first session of practice. He managed to complete his 15 laps early
in the day before his suspension failed and then he had to endure repairs to the gearbox as well, which meant that he had only a single lap timed nearing the afternoon.
There were more problems in store for HRT when they were fined $5000 when the car rolled onto the track with the tyre blanket still on the tyre of Yamamoto’s car. However, this practice session was expected to be vital for the top 3 teams especially McLaren.
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