The inaugural Friday practice session of the Korean Grand Prix (Part 2)
After all the cars had completed their first run on the Korean International Circuit, all the cars were in the pits now as they wanted to discuss the track conditions with their teams to come up with the perfect set-up for the inaugural race in Korea. Robert
Kubica was heading back out for another tour in his Renault. In the team garages the data downloaded from the installation runs completed, but it may be several minutes before we see meaningful running.
Kubica kicked up a huge cloud of dust as he gingerly braked his Renault for Turn 4. Petrov has joined his team-mate on track to continue the exploration. The track conditions were possibly even more difficult than the first day of practice at the Bahrain Grand
Prix when Formula 1 first went there for the inaugural grand prix in 2004.
After the 15 minute marker, Kubica pitted after a single lap. It was quite clear now that the drivers were extremely hesitant to apply a reasonable percentage of throttle, and even at slow speeds, the drivers were correcting their slides frequently. Petrov
was also heading back to the garage, but Hamilton and Massa are out again.
Button was also heading around for another look at the circuit in his McLaren to get better results. Massa was on course to clock a time and had set the fastest first sector at an epic 63.3 seconds. The rest of the drivers were eagerly watching Massa's progress
from the pits, while they wanted to see what kind of lap time he could establish in the Ferrari. Massa decided to pit his Ferrari and did not complete the lap as he lost some time in the third and second sectors of his lap.
Sakon Yamamoto joined the circuit for the second time and was joined by Jaime Alguersuari. Yamamoto climbed the hill to exit Turn 6 as he continued a round on his lap out of the pits. The Japanese driver exited the final corner and crossed the line to begin
a timed lap finally. Yamamoto braked too late for Turn 3 and missed the apex of the right-hander by around four metres. He was able to continue his run though.
Further around the lap, the Japanese driver was off the road completely exiting Turn 11 but was able to rejoin with extremely dirty tyres. Yamamoto crossed the line in a time of 2m05.315s, but there was no message on the screen saying his next lap was invalid.
Michael Schumacher and Sebastien Buemi both joined the racetrack, while Alguersuari completed a timed lap with no improvement. Hamilton was now out again in his McLaren as the team tried to get some aerodynamic work in progress with back-to-back tests of developments.
Yamamoto lowered the benchmark to 2m01.026s as the pace improved with every run. Schumacher did not want to stay behind either as he crossed the line in 1m53.458s and lowers the benchmark by 7.568 seconds near the 25 minute marker.
Sebastien Buemi was the next man to top the list with a lap of 1m52.318s as Hamilton toured through the pits to give McLaren a measure of the time loss during his pit stop. Mark Webber was out on the circuit for a run in the Red Bull, as Yamamoto found another
five seconds with a lap of 2m00.013s. Up until now, just four drivers completed a timed lap, with Buemi at the top, followed by Schumacher and Yamamoto in third.
Schumacher took the top spot away from Buemi with a lap of 1m50.140s but Buemi did not want to stay behind and responded with a time of 1m50.876s to retain his second top spot. Kobayashi emerged from the Sauber garage for an exploratory tour this time as Sebastian
Vettel watched the progress of the drivers from the Red Bull garage on the monitor placed on his car.
Near the 30 minute marker, Mark Webber scored the quickest time with a lap of 1m49.308s and Bruno Senna joined the racetrack for a run of laps in the HRT as Schumacher returned to the pits after a long run.
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